THE CRUELEST MONTH

 
Dingy like someone waking
Hungover. The long white revelry
That covered over roofs and lawns
Revealed at last as moldy shingles,
Grass stained with acid piss of a dog
Who went wherever. Now you reap
What languor provided, sleeping by the
Log fire. Now you see the old house
In its lost splendor of peeling paint
And grimy windows. Spring,
Generous in the yellowing willows
And forsythia, insists you rise and rake
A season’s worth of sodden leaves.
You shake the headache, stretch your limbs
Like maple trees as the sap rises
And bend to pick up the thousand twigs
Of the calendar of your ease.