January

In the last days of January, I can’t get warm.
The cold seeps in through gaps in the doorframe.
Wind rattles the glass of the windows.
My breath stands frozen in the path from car to clinic doors.
The dark presses in.
Everything is hard today.
I don’t have the answer again.
I know too much that will not help.
I don’t know how the tears choose the days when the burdens of hard lives endured
overflow the guardrails I erect.
Still, I listen and wait.
Even in January the sun rises every morning right on time—
if I lift my gaze in the midst of the hard.
the sun blazes its warm glow on the horizon, steadfast hope of another dawn.