The 7th of February

Emma Elisabeth Murphy

Today the dormant branches

Encase themselves with ice.

They devour breath from air,

In frozen protection—

For what is half alive,

Desires to be both dead,

And to Live all the same.

But cold always clings

To concealed moments of

Surrender – this desire

Cannot melt what suspends

Before the sun. My lungs

Suck these awakened vapors,

And I wish for us to mold,

To shift, to embrace—as

Water to this dormant tree,

From some unknown instinct

Of intelligence beyond

Winter’s icy rapture.