It’s February and my mouth is a creek bed, frozen.

I only want to trundle to the silent woods and hear 

the fog coalesce into ice. I want to cross my arms

like the crocus tips, still raw, dreaming in the cold.

I want an unspeakable sky, gray as an unlaid egg. 

 

But everyone is talking at once, too fast - the sky billows blue 

and the close-gripped ivy races up,

devouring the cedar. Blameless robins hunt the warming soil and a cacophony 

of nettles, that harbinger of spring, arrives too soon. Children squeal,

toss their coats at the bottom of the metal slide

which screams

the sun back at me.

 

Can you believe this weather? someone guffaws.

 

               Can you believe this?

 

 

 

                                           Can this be?

 

 

           

                                                                                                                                                                                                         How can this be?