December dusk on the Gatineau
         (For Catherine : Oct. 1957- Dec. 2003)

The early breath of winter freezes the river into flat, black glass.

I follow her winding spine along the tracks;
she sighs as she settles her new weight
into the long sleep of a season’s end.
The whip of snow, strewn in zig zag formation like Escher’s birds,
distracts the clench of my heart:
in fact, you seem part of their flight towards the breaking moon

The beach  where we once talked,
is now a shadowed hollow holding the frozen prints of our bodies.
I stare, clinging to our summer skin,
to the hot chortle in your throat
and the gritty touch of fingers under the sand

I turn home;
the moan of the river’s belly
resonates now into the vibrato of a low, lone note of a single string
slowing 
to the absolute stillness 
of your hand’s 
release

© Laura McNairn