It still stands, a patch of red,
a bleeding stork. It still stands,
starched stiff like a red 
pucker, a tongue to let 
speak the surrounding 
snowdrifts.

No disturbances. No footprints 
in the snow. No smoke, still.
It stands, painfully ready to be
used. The blushing shows 
through the snowy cover.

This was a landscape of past revelation,
deepening haydrifts and smiling pumpkins.
A flame of childhood sparked
with the pony’s clop, the rider’s 
smile a lifeline lifted on 
and off the back.

Tonight: dead winter, seventeen below.
The barn stands, its empty self
a mirror’s lipstick smudge, a strain
of broken blood. Something,
somewhere, will arrive. We gather
like leaves on the back porch.