Advance by Katherine Fallon

Overnight, the land traded faces, brownstone roofs

newly suffocated in snow, and with nothing between
us but an open window, she and I sat, smoking,

shivering like a punishment, each with one hand out
into the glittered cold. If I heard her, I tried not to:
unready for affection that was not yours, adamant

that the space I occupied was mine, and mine
alone. As though I’d made it through without her.
As though later on, when I shoveled drifts,

the green grass I found beneath had persisted,
in cold and focused commitment, for me,
for me, for me.

Katherine Fallon’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in AGNI, Colorado Review, Juked, Meridian, Foundry, and Best New Poets 2019, among others. Her chapbook, The Toothmakers’ Daughters, is available through Finishing Line Press. She shares domestic space with two cats and her favorite human, who helps her zip her dresses.

10 January 2022