Winter by Patricia Fargnoli


 

On the high hills, six white horses eat gray sky.
Snow has fallen, soft as flannel on the stoney road.
A wrong turn has taken me to this lost place.
In my jacket pocket, coins left through seasons,
waiting for some felt future, some frivolous dream.
At what cost does one let coins fall, let losing come?
 
The road deadends in dense forest, deep as my life.
No one in the cabin there, no one in the woodshed, cold night fast.
Soup cans in the cupboard, a capable fire in the iron stove.
All alone here. I will be answering your letter for a long time.

 
 
 
Patricia Fargnoli, the NH Poet Laureate from 2006-2009, has published four books of poems and three chapbooks. Her latest book, Winter, comes out from Hobblebush Books, fall 2013 . Her three previous books are award-winning: Then, Something,Tupelo Press 2009 co-won the New England Poetry Club’s Sheila Mooton Book Award and the ForeWord Silver Poetry Award; Duties of the Spirit, Tupelo Press, 2005, won the NH Literary Award for Poetry and Necessary Light, Utah State University Press, 1999, won the May Swenson Book Award. Pat, a former Macdowell Fellow, has published poems in such journals as: Ploughshares, Harvard Review, Image, Green Mountains Review, Massachusetts Review, Poetry, etc..