catapult magazine

Traditional Covering

by Marissa Carpenter

This is a new home now.
The one I share with you.
It isn’t that I dislike sharing.
And it certainly isn’t that I dislike sharing a roof
or
cups of coffee or
the stories of our excitingly ordinary days.
It’s the snow that keeps us inside —
snow that is the evaporated melted flakes of
your own childhood
But not of mine.
And now our marriage is covered
very traditionally
in white
and the deep black of winter solstice.
The charm of Christmas past is lost
though the tree stands still with red and
Golden lights glowing well into St. Valentine’s.
When winter extends beyond the hope of Advent and the flowers have not yet bloomed in expectation of Easter —
We needed color beyond the neutral ground of graying, melted snow:
the evergreen of our first Christmas.