The snow this morning falls
it is wet and young
and will wash away. I can smell
the grass below
my shoes ease down into the mud.
The few women from my life
are still sleeping
somewhere in Minnesota or Ohio
I walk across the pasture with only
a few young colts for company.
Timid and big boned
they are like girls I remember
from school, who never
said much, and kept their heads
looking down, and their arms crossed
against their growing bosom
They must be nearly forty now.
Like me, they must sometimes look out
windows on early mornings
onto silent backyards, with rusting barbeques
and the fences of houses in neat rows
I imagine they go back to bed
and think of whoever used
to make them happy
and wonder where
they have been taken.
I don’t know why I’m wandering
out here this morning
I don’t care about the girls
Whether they’ve made
sense of their lives
they can have it.
I only want to walk
a little longer further away
from the house
and feel the cold,
raise my face to
the falling snow.
I will resolve nothing today.