Winter Growing

Plants in the tunnels
are barely growing
in this cold
I am barely here

In the winter
I fall back on old habits -
headphones, lines of code
the remote stars

I want growth and decay
to pound me awake
need the hot crisis of summer
to pin me to my body

But I have only
these tiny green threads
to tend, and the slight
pull of their becoming,

so vulnerable
that I try to make space
in my distracted heart
to feel them,
shield them from the frost
and uncover to the light
of the shortest days.