With each passing week
of winter, it gets harder
to live with, harder to
live without
waking before seven
to find once again
the primly
coated neighborhood—
white
branches and cable wires,
all the status-
symbol and the beater cars
equalized.
As if
everything that was
last night has been
killed. And then raised up
one level of attainment—
younger,
but more wizened;
lighter, but increasingly
solid as carbon;
faster and looser, yet
ever more devoted
to its rigid discipline:
evincing a razor-
sharp purpose
in this imprecision.
