“Winter” by Megan Fernandes

One winter, I became very quiet
and saw my life. It was February

and outside in the city streets,
snow fell but would not collect.

I bought snapdragons and thistle,
got some discount peach roses

that smelled off. I split them
between vases and moved

the bouquets from room to room
while a violin solo rang out.

My throat hurt. My tonsils grew
blubbery like two fat snails,

kissing in a slow arc.
A detective show played.

I wanted a cigarette
and Jimmy Stewart in my bed.

Nightly, I dreamt of epileptic
Dostoevsky in Siberia with only

the New Testament to read
and thought of that mock execution

from which he never recovered.
Four years he spent there

in the dead cold. I have
two cats in New York

and not so much loneliness.
Still, I prepare for their deaths,

but who knows, I may go first.
Sorry, but I’m like this in winter.

My composure an evergreen with
the settled world that keeps settling.

I trek the season.
I arrange the dance of blooms,

room to room, and keep
my small perimeter fed and alive.

We tread to March
like soldiers, like sailors tossed

into navy tides, into
wave white, and who,

spotting land, at last,
grow gills at its sight.

In “Winter,” poet Megan Fernandes explores the sense of quiet, aloneness and search for aliveness that many experience in the depths of winter. As the trees become bare, animals hibernate and the world slows down, she finds herself faced with “my life.” When such moments happen, we sometimes choose to look more closely, more deeply. Others, we might instead seek aliveness, in the form of plant life; distractions in the form of cigarettes or lovers. Fernandes notes that death draws closer in winter, when she’s more likely to ponder the mortality of both her cats and herself. She identifies the coming spring as something to look towards – a savior, beckoning us from drowning towards its sturdy shore.

Megan Fernandes is a South Asian American writer who lives in New York City. She is also an Associate Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette College. You can watch Fernandes speak about humor and dignity in the midst of defeat in the video below.