Narcissi and snowdrops flaunt their primal sexual purpose. You urge me to photograph them before tomorrow’s storm crushes their elaborate little blossoms.

I’m more concerned that the snow will crush me, crush my spirit in a vast, slow-moving gloom, crush my body under hemlocks collapsed by the wet sticky weight.

You ignore my unmanly fear and feed the cats their breakfast without considering how small I’ve become with age, easy prey. Still, if we survive this week

together we might smile away the exhausted tropes of winter and replace them with April thoughts that despite their crude aesthetic will warm us together again.