Maxine Patroni
In Winter
In the shower,
we’re alone
together.
Fog veiled
over blue
shutters.
Inside:
we unravel.
One slender stroke
then miracles
of salt.
Moon-soured,
night enters
then lifts
to bend grasses
westward—
too bland
this house.
Our wet cuts,
traces
we touched
and meant it.
Something
in our blood
quelled too long,
hums.
A towel across
the mirror
the only prayer
after
the crying
stops.
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Maxine Patroni graduated with an MFA in Poetry from New York University where she was the Teachers and Writers Fellow. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Literary Review, Greensboro Review, Allegheny Review and elsewhere.