Winterbitch? Poem by Richard Blanch

Whispering pheasants clustered on the gate
Await the nervous breathing cloistered death of winter.
In their bright eyes hides nothing. But in yours
The clanging pistons of a parting train break
- Not like the frost-feathered final breath of a love
- But the brim-shielded glitter of white teeth
Beneath the grinding of those too bright eyes
Where something did hide: harder than the hardness
Of these furrowed fields under the watery sun
And just as unknowing.