Alone after the news on a bitter
evening in the country, sleet slashing
the stubbled fields, the river ice;
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
at the end of a bad year. Trees begin
to outnumber houses. Rain turns to snow
as fields hang like paintings.
