Woodcut

by Joanna Wright

Sometimes
we're like a Hiroshige woodcut,
where snow
calligraphies an inky sky
and roofs and road
are quieted by white.
Only shadowed footprints
show our merging.
We meet, we talk,
our words are brittled
by the cold

and we pass on, our private
silences draped heavy
on our shoulders
like the heft of snow
on the rose-pink robe
of the hunched figure
heading one way,
on the paper parasol
and blue jacket
hugged close by the figure
heading the other.