A Winter Without Snow

    That wry¹ look of accomplished² conspiracy³，

    The look of those who've gotten away

    With a petty but regular white collar crime.

    When I pick up my shirts at the laundry，

    A black woman， putting down her Daily News，

    Wonders why and how much longer out luck

    Will hold.  "Months now and no kiss of the witch."

    The whole state overcast⁴ with such particulars.

    For Emerson， a century ago and farther north，

    Where the country has an ode's jagged edges，

    It was "frolic architecture."  Frozen blue-

    Print of extravagance， shapes of a shared life

    Left knee-deep in transcendental drifts：

    The isolate⁵ forms of snow are its hardest fact.

    Down here， the plain tercets of provision do，

    Their picket⁶ snow-fence peeling， gritty，

    Holding nothing back， nothing in， nothing at all.

    Down here， we've come to prefer the raw material

    Of everyday and this year have kept an eye

    On it， shriveling but still recognizable——

    A sight that disappoints even as it adds

    A clearing second guess to winter.  It's

    As if， in the third year of a "relocation"

    To a promising⁷ notch⁸ way out on the Sunbelt，

    You've grown used to the prefab housing，

    The quick turnover⁹ in neighbors， the constant

    Smell of factory smoke——like Plato's cave，

    You sometimes think——and the stumpy trees

    That summer slighted and winter just ignores，

    And all the snow that never falls is now

    Back home and mixed up with other piercing

    Memories of childhood days you were kept in

    With a Negro schoolmate， of later storms

    Through which you drove and drove for hours

    Without ever seeing where you were going.

    Or as if you've cheated on a cold sickly wife.

    Not in some overheated turnpike motel room

    With an old flame， herself the mother of two，

    Who looks steamy in summer-weight slacks

    And a parrot-green pullover.  Not her.

    Not anyone.  But every day after lunch

    You go off by yourself， deep in a brown study，

    Not doing much of anything for an hour or two，

    Just staring out the window， or at a patch

    On the wall where a picture had hung for ages，

    A woman with planets in her hair， the gravity

    Of perfection in her features——oh！ her hair

    The lengthening¹⁰ shadow of the galaxy's sweep.

    As a young man you used to stand outside

    On warm nights and watch her through the trees.

    You remember how she disappeared in winter，

    Obscured by snow that fell blindly on the heart，

    On the house， on a world of possibilities.