This Far In

a poem for difficult weather

This Far In

Winter left a dent in me
filling up and spilling over 
with manic bird clatter. Cold 
April morning: light lances
through bedroom curtains
and casts an arrowhead
bright across the dark wood floor.

Gray, abbreviated days 
accumulated, and left 
a dent in me, a hollow 
space for morning’s discord
to echo and loop.
How the heart chafes against it:
the vacillations of spring—
from false to freezing. 

There’s ice
in the forecast tonight, but
something of the morning remains— 
mind and heart and body cling 
to what I won’t mistake for 
song. The manic clatter
of waking creatures. 
And the river’s last slab of ice 
cracking and snapping off 
into the drift.