Deanna Kern Ludwin Coming Home Alone in Winter I brush the snow from my shoulders, shake it from my cold, wet hair as I reach for the light switch— the house still shuddering with words we didn’t mean—and I want you here to breathe into my frozen hands to wrap me in our patchwork quilt. Shivering out of my damp coat, I reach for the wood stove door— surprise! already stacked, the tidy makings of a fire: newspapers you wadded, twigs you gathered from the last chinook, the aspen log you laid on top. All I have to do is strike a match, watch the flames spring up— and if I add another piece of wood just before bed, the house will still be warm when you come home, and you can pull yours jeans off comfortably before you slide beneath the covers, nudge your face into my flannel shoulder; before you say—the way you always do— Oh. I didn’t mean to wake you.