Opposing Forces

Even in this sharp weather there are lovers everywhere

holding onto each other, hands in one another’s pockets

for warmth, for the sense of I’m yours, the tender claim

it keeps making—one couple stopping in the chill

to stand there, faces pressed together, arms around

jacketed shoulders so I can see bare hands grapple

with padding, see the rosy redness of cold fingers

as they shift a little, trying to register through fold

after fold, This is my flesh feeling you you’re feeling.

It must be some contrary instinct in the blood

that sets itself against the weather like this, brings

lovers out like early buds, like the silver-grey catkins

I saw this morning polished to brightness

by ice overnight. Geese, too: more and more couples

voyaging north, great high-spirited congregations

taking the freezing air in and letting it out

as song, as if this frigid enterprise were all joy,

nothing to be afraid of.