Winter is not a season
but my glacial womb, the blue
ice that festoons my shoes, my toes
tapping as I croon: moon, moon,
send us some snow! I will not be born,
cannot live until a blizzard comes,
my father chopping blocks frozen
by the side door, my mother’s contractions
coming closer, coinciding with the strike
of metal on stone. Usher me in—midnight’s
hush
deeper still in snow’s silence. Feathered
dark, air sharp with chilled clarity.
Winter, my midwife.
Winter, the breathing season.
Winter Birth
Ellen Austin-Li’s work has appeared in Artemis, Thimble Literary Magazine, The Maine Review, Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices, Rust + Moth, and other places. Finishing Line Press published her two chapbooks—Firefly (2019) and Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic (2021). A Best of the Net nominee and a Martin B. Bernstein Fellowship recipient, she earned an MFA in Poetry at the Solstice Low-Residency Program. Ellen co-founded the monthly reading series, “Poetry Night at Sitwell’s,” in Cincinnati, where she lives with her husband in a newly empty nest. You can find more of her work at www.ellenaustinli.me.