I'm pretty sure it's never been
this cold. My face is frozen
into the expression
that I walked out the door
wearing this morning.
So, be careful what you think about
when you leave the house.

I was wondering why the tiny
brown birds on the steps
of the funeral parlor don't go home.
With their bodies puffed up
into little wisps, and their eyes
shut in painful concentration,
they wait indefinitely like valets
with no cars to park.

The only sign of the man
who brought the day's load of flowers
in through the back door,
is a sidewalk littered
with the promises of spring.

The bereft are home, eating
sweaty pasta salad. A stocking-footed
woman cries violently, spilling
her glass of wine onto the carpet,
while relatives look away
from photographs of the newly departed
with mounting unease.

A young couple steals upstairs
taking an opportunity to make love
on sheets which they cannot yet afford.

Yet the birds have stuck around,
and by the time I rounded the corner
I was sure that they weren't birds at all,
but the stones of a mysterious monument
erected by an ancient people
who mourned the coming of a season
when nobody died, and life seemed
long under the sun.