Sugar Water in Winter
A bowl of rose water dreams itself empty
on the radiator: It's December and we can
hardly afford the heat, our milk money
crinkling hungry over the cold counter
of our convenience store, the very last
of our cash for creamer, for pleasantries,
for cheap tea and cigarettes, for the barely-
there scent of roses burning softly. We trade
our hungers for hearth, for the clank and hiss
of warmth. Small fires, these, but even we,
in our clamorous poverty, demand pleasure:
steal sugar, our neighbor's flowers, and never,
ever are caught thankless in better weather.
Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2018 by Christie Towers, "Sugar Water in Winter," from Nimrod International Journal, (Vol. 62, No. 1, Fall/Winter 2018). Poem reprinted by permission of Christie Towers and the publisher.