Art & Music | Poetry

Cabin Nights

Drawn to the silk of your skin
    my body follows your hollows and hills
      warm in the early chill

All the night creatures
    bound in the breathing air
        end their song in country silence

Through the lingering stillness
    I catch the rush of the swollen stream
      water smoothing stones

Snowbound

Inside the storm
inside the warm room
    deep inside the heart’s dream
    we are finger spelling
      in each other’s hands.

For a timeless space
there is no pushing away
    as we draw close.
    In other rooms the ordinary
      porcelain, garlic, linens.

Outside the air
is starched white lace
    binding us inside the warm
    room inside the song
      our fingers play

Patti Tana is Professor Emerita of English at Nassau Community College and the 2009 Walt Whitman Birthplace Long Island Poet of the Year. Any Given Day (Whittier Publications, Inc., 2011) is her eighth collection of poems. Visit pattitana.com.