Today's Water

Rain, but rain so fine
only puddles give it away.
On the restaurant roof the steam
changes direction, a wholesale maneuver
like indecisive geese, or so
it seems to me, the girl inside
who cannot feel the currents.





photograph by flickr user t0asty

Windy Afternoon

Each gust brings
one leaf, the remains
of desiccated vines.

Old nests blow by,
coming undone
just as they were built,
in pieces.




photograph by flickr user chaque-jour

Shouted from the Office Window

I see the snow
melting, Spring, don't pretend
you're not out there.





photograph by flickr user Todd (cedarkayak)

After the Inauguration

The office is snow-fall silent.
As I pass rows of desks, fingers
are gentler on the keys, tissues meet
the corners of quickly drying eyes.
No one speaks. A girl puts
her sandwich into the toaster oven,
closing the little door
as though a baby slept inside.

On screen the crowd dispersed
in easy, graceful rows, breaking off
like plates of ice above a thawing stream.



Photograph by Susan Walsh - AP