this reach for rough
edges at a day's end

insomnia's
endless shuffle
& skip through all
the wrong songs

snowswathed & winter
cradles me in mountain's crook
gelid glade languor

these other sides
of our days our
internal schedules
of self-contained
rote sincerity

ritual responses
we unexpress
& mentally masticate

o bitter truths
kept & fermented
hope to turn sweet
but eventually bite

'til we swill in cyclic
nearly empty snifters
of outside selves

fog-full aspen groves
appear dead anticipate
shrouds of snow
their pillowhite promises