Around the steps the trees bend
singing themselves to sleep
in the bending time of early winter.

Finches strain their necks
fluffing and fluttering
in the snowing, blowing afternoon.

Cars down the road rumble past
vibrating the air like new
woofers at the downtown cinema.

The finches jump with whispery
anticipation clinging to feathers
before they mingle into nightfall.

It is a comfortable cold
through the wind and snow
stars are ornaments hidden by clouds.

The cars muffle now and whether
darkness or clouds or the quiet
of a starless night, they drive softly.

Even the fir trees are gone hiding
behind the dark curtain of snowfall and steps
the finches vanished without notice.

—

Markus Egeler Jones graduated with Eastern Kentucky University’s MFA. He is an Assistant Professor at Chadron State College. His first novel, How the Butcher Bird Finds Her Voice, was published by Five Oaks Press. His fiction and poetry appear in New Mexico Review, Crab Fat Magazine, The Story Shack, Temenos.