The Manhattan Sonnets - 11

The winter makes you sullen, gray and cold --
  You’re dark and dreary almost all the time.
Your bitterness is keen and uncontrolled;
  Your winds are raw and vicious, like a crime.
You greet the sunshine with a frigid hate
  That like Medusa stares the world to stone.
Your fingers are like whips that flagellate,
  Lancing through flesh and muscle to the bone.
Only the snow can scarf your biting edge --
  It muffles your complaints beneath a quilt
That blankets skyscrapers into a hedge,
  Softening stings like good deeds soften guilt,
     Till all your coldness, anger, distance, spite,
     Are hushed away in kissing drifts of white.

Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells


Other posts in this series:

Sonnet 1
Sonnet 2
Sonnet 3
Sonnet 4
Sonnet 5
Sonnet 6
Sonnet 7
Sonnet 8
Sonnet 9
Sonnet 10