This should be a little less about butter
and a bit more about vegetables.
But the color cannot always be green—
Does a hero wear oversized mittens?
Winter is a time for roots,
a time to climb every available staircase.

I approach the cold, the unending staircase—
Burdened like bread by butter.
Posed into a tree, I grow roots
stronger than thick yellow vegetables
& I’m stewed, warmed by woolen mittens
and liquor that makes me green.

Waiting to see the start of green
is a chore, like a narrow staircase.
There are moth-made holes in my mittens.
I dream of daffodils and butter,
but never of ripe vegetables.
I feel the weather in my roots.

There’s something red in my roots,
no matter my hopes for green.
I swallow my melted vegetables,
stare up at the staircase.
My body has become butter—
A hero, I wear broken mittens.

I stitch up my mittens
with yarn as coarse as roots.
I’m breaking it off with butter,
determined to start out green.
Still, halfway up the staircase,
I hide some uneaten vegetables

beneath carpeting decorated with vegetables.
Yesterday I lost my mittens,
but I found them on the staircase.
In inconsistency, I’ve found my roots
and branches, now sprouting green.
I think less and less of butter.

A diet heavy with butter and vegetables
makes me green, envious of the journey of mittens
unraveling down the staircase, lost little roots.