Clear blue brings bite and bundle:
the panes that radiate cold:
although the space heater
quickly fills the room
with a strained warmth:
small, fragile, easily repulsed.

A net of birds casts from the trees
only to return like dulled delight
against a citrus sunset.

We will pull the curtains soon:
just another thin layer
of barely protection.

The open blind sunlight  
did its best: not much:
to steep the upstairs:
this old house, its tired furnace.

What belongs to me today?

The coldest air of the year
my office: this paper:
dusk shade darkening:
and the streetlamp star
redorange as a spark:
the snow and ice plated street
yellowed with traffic.

What bulbs and seeds, larvae
have frozen below the frostline
waiting and waiting
waiting to tear and blade
through husk and topsoil?

When the sun comes in at this angle
I realize how much I need to dust:
the smudge cover slough of my skin
on desk and picture frame, lampshade.

Soon I won’t be able to see.
Soon when I turn on my desk light
the shine that turns the inside out.

Behind my own reflection now
all the cars turn slow:
the front wheels that refuse to spin:
I watch at the intersection
of Vincent and Sixth
follow the tire track imprecise slides
the dotted lines and diagrams
of accidents and whiplash
and bruise bleeding
the reproduction of fatality.

Because it’s my duty
I would have forgiven today’s trespass
of the winter sun between the houses:
across the green fade December lawn:
that soft light that invites
the longest shadows: hope and trust:

but it’s hard to believe despite its hinting
the next budding isn’t far, far away.

—John Walser

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