Winter

Chloe Zhao ’28

the trees are frozen sketches—no leaves, only the bones 
of last year’s thoughts, charcoal lines on paper 
abandoned in the wind, smudged by snow, forgotten
by hands too tired to keep drawing.

her boots whisper down the salted path, puddles
    blooming in the snowmelt—dark, shallow
ghosts that trail each step. she swallows

each bite quietly: bread crusts, the fraying 
edges of soft-boiled eggs, the dull face of an apple 
    still carrying the sting of cold storage.

the living room’s windows bleed gray
    as the trees press their bodies against the glass.
she reads the same paragraph—twice, then
    again, until the letters blur back
into the black poppy seeds the wind never split open.

when sleep swings open like the unlatched gate
we always forget to silence, the night turns
sleepless. she curls into the chair
    by the window, wrapped in wool thick enough 
to muffle both body and voice. her breath
    fogs the pane, lattices of ice 
inching up the glass, watching night dissolve 
into dawn, pale & thin—milk left to curdle
in the bowl. waterlogged, cold.

she prays for the lush greenness
    to return, to devour the dry season
with a message threaded through 
the long hush of darkness, a message 
that climbs the hill, passes through the frostbitten 
glass, that wades through the beige cocoon 
of wool, until it blooms in her ears:
    so soft, so sure, she can’t quite hold 
its warmth in words.

all she can muster is: let the light 
pour in. she waits for the azure 
to yawn & wakes, to gingerly unravel her crimson scarf
and wrap her in its own pulse, a flare 
of color against the long gray.