Uncommonly Long Winters Poem by Jacqui Thewless

At the flowering,
Solstice makes Poppies’ frills flash in its cornfields,
leads Rose petal silks along garden paths,
lets folded Foxglove-fingers ruby and open for bees
and couples moan in grass,
and ghosts of the widows breathe on window-glass,
drawing newly-broken hearts that bleed, seeing that
this season still breeds lovers.
Uncommonly
long winters shutter the springs and falls
but never summers -
no, not ever summers.