First One Out
Jan 24 2010


The air is thick
with fat wet snow,
drizzling down
windless.
Tires spin
branches bend
streetlights dim,
like feeble yellow snow-globes.

The kind of snow that sticks,
so the city becomes a picture postcard.
Where evergreens, limbs extended
look like little kids in soft white dresses,
curtseying
for adoring parents.
And festive ice tops broken fences.
And cars, cocooned
in cream confections.

I am the first one out.
My footprints break
the smooth glazed surface,
leave no doubt
who the vandal was.
I feel I am trespassing on perfection,
should have stayed in the house
looking-out from darkened windows
as the frozen street vanished —
hard edges buffed
sound muffled,
all our stuff equalized
beneath a puffy white comforter.
The world
slowly filling up.

Feeling grateful
for our undeserved luck
here, on the cusp of weather —
a couple degrees more,
it’s cold hard rain
in a grey December.