Incoming.

Here's the poem I took to my group yesterday, with some revisions based on their feedback:

For days on end it snows

I’ve had enough of this quiet, woven of baffled fans,
sleep, and everyone gone. Out of our bed, I want a nest

made of newspaper, dogs, books, children, music and chatter.
In the night I wake, expect to hear her huff and shift.

At the end she lay her head on her paws. For as long
as we wanted, we could still stroke her soft ears.

Downstairs, a bedroom no one sleeps in,
the bed unmade, discarded socks dimly remembering

their former feet. The bird once trapped there, beating.
Medallions, pennants, trophies. I ready myself to order it.

I should open the door, let everything out that wants out,
let stillness settle before I arrive with my heave and flow.

On the lawn up the street, snowmen, four of them,
still and cold. On his walk, our other dog abruptly

bristles and growls at them: something amiss,
a new series of masters, white overlords aligned

suddenly in the yard he used to sniff and prowl.
I always loved waking to what had fallen in the night:

first thing, she’d bury her face in it,
then lie down, the snow like a mother.