NaPoWriMo #9 - The family waits

The family waits

They sat still in winter coats like limp marionettes
alone with thoughts of their own dampening armpits.
Outside even the puddles were frozen thicker than your finger,
stowing winter underneath. Cold enough to make the memories stick
like blackcurrant jam. In here they gathered as if a campfire blared
from the chimneystack, all staring at the blackened grate. All still.
Somewhere in their collective memories a fiddle played
against the strum of a guitar and the room,
filled with the bruise of winters past, shifted slightly.
The snow fell in sheets on the city winds, shaking the windows and doors.