Between

The garden holds its breath— neither spring's urgent green nor winter's clean erasure.

A single crocus pushes through the frosted soil, purple as bruises, as if bloom itself were an act of defiance.

The birds have forgotten their names. They land on damp branches and shake out feathers dark with rain, singing nothing familiar, teaching themselves a new language from the ground up.

We stand at the fence, watching. Our hands are cold. Our words, when they come, are small as seeds— uncertain whether to split open or remain forever in the husk, waiting for a season that may never arrive.

This is the time of thresholds, the narrow bridge between what was and what might be. Everything is possible because nothing has committed yet. The light falls at an angle that never quite clarifies.