Advent

She settles on my heart  and lights a candle.
Her purple skirts rustling
tickling like the flutter
of a sharp inhale.
My lover at the door.

I descend the stairs
while the badger in my chest beats itself against my ribs
desperate to escape and to know
in new ways the hand that rang the bell
and woke him up.

And at the door
swung open in the flurries of snow;
blustering and cold

are footprints where once my Love had been.

There are no flowers and no smile that calls me home.

all there is

is a card in the snow

And two small words:

"Not yet."