No wind moves the curtains in the brick house.
He has no other wives to remind him of the cabin.

His father was all weather maps, the gulls circling
beneath gray skies. The first north wind with clouds

meant snow. A father's maybe showed allegiance.
If morning became rain, no blame settled in the house.

Weather fails no one in the new place. The trace
of snow on the Olympics, light from night tugs

before Maury Island, the whistle of the early freight
to Portland live in the house with no ghosts.

He owes no one winter, morning starts and stays.
Today may be counting bells at the crossing gate,

starlings in fig trees, a neighbor girl's missed
shots pounding against the garage.

Once a woman he loved saved him a box of snakes.
When he opened the box, it was empty.

A man with such a gift knows the sound of skin
kept close, knows the twists in confined space.

She could have given him one field with enough snow
to keep hawks on the fence posts.

At the window in the brick house,
he hears his mother laugh over missing snakes.

She says she feels her bones disappear.
He sees the man who lied for snow drive a highway

and drift through winter longing for the woman
who caught fear. Books rest on new shelves.