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Janet Sylvester has published two books of poetry, That Mulberry Wine and The Mark of Flesh and has another, And Not to Break, in the works.  She teaches writing at Harvard Summer School and Harvard Extension and Reading Poetry at MIT.

Hard Frost

A hank of vines, clematis and morning
glory, hangs from the courtyard arch.

Long stems of dahlias blacken the fence
and bend, petals the bloody rough of gems.

We used to talk for hours, didn’t we,
quick air scouring the ground?

And then, behind the hollow’s gold,
where the pond’s still blue accumulates

like filigree on leaves in rimy grass,
the whuff and rattle of a companion

heron, harvesting its image, as it lifts
out of a watery skin of ice

— Janet Sylvester

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