remembering our respiratory
dissonance, I am lying in bed
it is winter again

I harbored suspicions
that the last might never end
but then there was spring
and everything was dripping
or had dripped

snowdrifts melted
to stationary puddles,
a nice place to keep
one’s reflection

once we stretched
the wee hours and walked
in that eerie blue light
to that terrible part of town
where I lived, it was cast
in morning twilight
but that doesn’t have a name
so far as I know

I tried to screw the cap
back on an orange fire hydrant
and then there was grease
all over my hands

that was inexplicable

there were fake golden flowers
in the saddest planter
I’ve ever seen
I thought I might die at the sight of it

suddenly nothing grew

and we were in bed again
the light shifted upward some,
and rising.