Onset of WinterAuthor(s): ANNA LOWESource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Winter 2009/10), p. 150Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20722066 .

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ANNA LOWE

Onset of Winter

Red morning. Leaves plastered to the sidewalk like the footprints

marking dance steps in beginner's ballroom classes. How else

will young couples know when

to step together, when to turn,

step apart? The city is cold, strands

of Christmas lights meandering down

and across houses like creeping vines, enormous hanging scars. Men

and women are still asleep, pressed

very close to one another, two

lashes under thick white sheets.

They come to the city to learn

to be quiet, to be swallowed up

by noises not of their own making.

Men wake to the awful sound

of other names on their lovers'

lips. Or they do not wake. Or

the sounds are not names at all,

but something else altogether. Some other music completely.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:18:40 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions