We do not speak of the outside world –
we whistle at the sun nosing around
the fraying stratus clouds,
lifting and dropping
golden rays that splash our ankles and
the winter-dead grasses –
we call out to our dogs
sniffing one another in turn,
then exuberantly rolling in the dead carp
that the bald eagle has dropped.
We ask each other, on the other ends of leashes,
what breed of dog they are, and how old,
and if there are kids running ahead
or lagging behind, they shout out random bits
of information, like what they’re having
for dinner or about the mitten they dropped
somewhere in between the car and you.
The woman cradling the camera and
walking slightly behind the man with the cane
smiles at me as I kneel down to frame up
a pussy willow branch struck against
a ragged patch of blue sky; she says
Spring is coming, and I feel in my bones
that it’s true, that its grace is sufficient
but too late, too late for us –
in a moment it will burst into green flame
and lie like a shroud upon the brow of this fevered world.
Halfway North 