Stepping outside to feed the birds
I find fog risen in the night.
It does not swirl around my legs
but parts and leaves a path in my wake.

Beneath the solid cloud unseen
winter grass crackles.
Black birdseed tossed to the ground
skitters and disappears.

Returning to the house I find
the bottom porch stair
where I slip and nearly fall.
Hidden ice.

Hidden eighteen years ago
when I visited you in Amsterdam.
We planned my move to you,
our move to winter on the North Sea.

Fog hid the crystalled sand
that crunched beneath our feet.
You hid two women from each other,
living two lives that couldn’t help but overlap –

fog over grass, fog over sand –
until she knew, then I knew.
This morning, sun rising to heat
the cold earth: fog lifts, ice melts.

– Jane