Draft: Phases

Phases
by Amy Unsworth

The geese stitch the night with their cries
and the cold seeps through the layers
upon layers, wool, silk, skin, muscle.

Forget the moon in her longing. Who
can bear to be reminded of the immensity
of loneliness, her cold white face.

The cold white sheets spread clean
across our bed. The laundry in tidy
piles: five socks, the fifth folding

in on itself, waiting. The days
add minutes, in beginning and ending.
The dark, a cipher, un-coding.

Our dogs snarl and snap then stretch,
returning to sleep, the down
rises like glacial peaks worn smooth.