Installment 39 rings in that season of suspension, that restless waiting between winter high spirits and the still-distant return of life.  

***

My Back Pages

One cricket trills somewhere
within the bookshelf

like the fan belt slipping
on a ‘74

Maverick idling at
the red light in the rain.

***

Morning  Fog

Last night, driving alone, snug within
my purring dome of darkness tinged
with glass, green dials, and my own breath,
I called out your name as I had done
a thousand times before, but this time
I startled at my voice, no passion,
no desire, just syllables filling
silence, the way commercials play on late-
night tv long after the sale has come
and gone, still urging the perfect gift—
synthetic yule logs that burn for hours,
a diamond pendant she’ll cherish forever,
special store hours, early and late, for these
two days only, some time last year  . . .
. . .  and here, this sodden morning,
the last patches of snow dissolve in fog
dripping from swollen twigs, spattering
black puddles where geese thwack their feet,
smear green shit, strut their smudgy wings,
hiss and honk through thrusting throats,
savage with the first scent of spring

***

Photo © Matthew Friedman