WINTER
MORNING
by
James Crews
When I can no longer
say thank you
for this new day and
the waking into it,
for the cold scrape of
the kitchen chair
and the ticking of the
space heater glowing
orange as it warms the
floor near my feet,
I know it is because
I've been fooled again
by the selfish, unruly
man who lives in me
and believes he
deserves only safety
and comfort. But if I
pause as I do now,
and watch the
streetlights outside winking
off one by one like
old men closing their
cloudy eyes, if I
listen to my tired neighbors
slamming car doors
hard against the morning
and see the steaming
coffee in their mugs
kissing their chapped
lips as they sip and
exhale each of their worries
white into
the icy air around
their faces—then I can
remember this one life
is a gift each of us
was handed and told to
open: Untie the bow
and tear off the
paper, look inside
and be grateful for
whatever you find
even if it is only the
scent of a tangerine
that lingers on the
fingers long after you've finished eating it.
-------------------------------------
James Crews lives on part of an organic farm with his
husband in Vermont. He is the author of two collections of poetry, The
Book of What Stays (Prairie Schooner Prize, 2011) and Telling
My Father (Cowles Prize, 2017), and his work has appeared in Ploughshares,
Raleigh Review, Crab Orchard Review and The New Republic,
among other journals. Crews also
recently edited the anthology, Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness
and Connection (Green Writers Press, 2019). He teaches creative
writing at SUNY-Albany.
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