Robin

Much of what a robin is for is telling me that it is spring.
They are for worms and nests and song, as well.
But they, and I, and we all carry a sign of change.
The stigma of life is on us all
whatever we are for.

Dead arm

I remember waking in the night, briefly
as if something had fluttered past me.
My arm, stretched above my head
was dull and lifeless.
Held under my head, it was separate and bloodless
sodden with weight.
I lurched my shoulder,
wrangling it up onto my chest
suddenly frightened
waiting for the trickle of lifeblood,
the sharp sparks and cracks of awakening.
I lay there with my dead arm
breathing heavily
feeling the indifference of our end
cold and without feeling
slumped on my chest.

Just waking up

It was so simple, just waking up
to a day where life became dull and difficult.
There was the sun, the apartment, the refrigerator
all looked the same.
The running toilet trickling into the afternoon.
Youth or innocence or optimism, I'm not sure—something had peaked
tipped the scale the other way.
What was poetic became tragic.
What was holding-on became pathetic.
Shallow, all shallows
my length of life wading through shallows.
There was the sun, the days, the people
all there behind a gauzy layer of glass.
That day and days after
thankfully a pool in a moving river,
thankfully a lull in a moving cycle.
But how they seemed forever
how they seemed permanent,
how they clutched my identity each long day.

Chime

The wind chime has been outside our window all winter
hanging from a string of twine, dripping sometimes, with icicles.
Music, chime, sound frozen and mute in the flakes and rolls of snow
the layers of cold wrapped like tight sheets.
Today, in the sun, I hear that chime
I hear spring
I hear robins with their peculiar chubby sounds, and Canada Geese
hoarse honking in their rough throats.