Wind-pummeled grass sweats beneath the death
of a stained, grainy carpet of snow.
I see, in the bus shelter, a crop
of plastic spoons, bright pink and lime green.
There is a shredded traffic cone sticking,
red as roadside sumac, out of some snowbank and
a flittering yellow wrapper, glossy and bright as a tulip
in defiance of the grey drop tile ceiling of sky.
I walk someone else’s streets, admiring their handiwork
and imagining the flat grey building,
improbably tall, that is even now gathering itself
just beneath the earth and preparing to shoot like a sapling.
O, how this spring is premature! The air is tepid
bathwater but the earth does not yield
colour in February. There are two pavers missing
from the street like teeth from a smile, and
someone has sprayed orange paint around the edges
of the void as if to say “watch out,”
or maybe “we’ll get that later.
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