Winter is coming

Seasons have a taste, a texture, a sound, a memory.

The prompt from my writing class this week was to use weather as an anchor.

As someone from New England, seasons were always my anchor. Amber leaves were synonymous with sweaty shin guards and running to the bus stop with wet hair. Frost in the field was a white flag of surrender to what felt like an endless winter. July tasted like tan lines, October sounded like James Taylor, and snow in April felt like a suckerpunch.

Seasons have a taste, a texture, a sound, a memory. And winter, more than any other, lives somewhere in my bones.

Tastes Like Winter

I’ve lost all feeling in my fingertips.
Walking through tree scenes like the ones
my grandmother plugged in at Christmastime,
pretending to be candlelit.

We walk for miles—nothing but the crunch
of snowcrust, like day-old bread.

His curly coat disappears beneath an ocean of white.

I bite my frozen fingers
as if the taste knows better than my sight.

[Written from the prompt “Use weather to anchor your scene” by Erin Rose Belair in my writing workshop with The Practice by Trust and Travel.]