The Reach

Just the other week trying to transfer joy

as if it were as easy as handing out free money

and the rebuff had no drama even in itself.

The street was still, foot traffic kept to its own business

and the home, when gotten back to, gave affectless

re-welcoming, having no idea what feelings churned,

only the tabby alert enough to squeak hello

circling the kibble bowl to a few cute enervated words.

It's dead winter now.  Twig tree, corpse-cold,

slow mutual motion -- laws of gravity and all that -- to draw

smooth snow, black moods, arthritis all together.

If the mouth pronounces an end to a February

not yet come, if in its present form the voice

concludes this January now, and the mind marches

March to an end, then what's to hold but what's held

anyway -- the imaginary Spring, always, for the taker.

.