My back to the hearth, I watch you, boot deep in the early snow, grilling salmon in the darkened yard.

The Weber flames up lighting your thin figure coatless in the cold, as you sear the pale pink flesh.

In every season you work the yard, now heavy with seed heads dried from August’s love, and the eglantine June pruned, bearing rosy hips some mockingbird in late March might consume.

I inhale the bread, steaming breaths of yeast, and toss the greens, dark curls of basil heavy with balsamic the way you like it, bringing a note of summer in. Wind breathes down the flue.

Apple wood shivers to ash. I hear a nor’easter blowing in from the sea. Coarse clouds cover this quarter moon. Tomorrow you plan to wrap the burlap round our long-caned Dortmund rose.