Third of March

Light slants in like a clean American photograph,  

1970s, sun bronzing the hospital-white side  

of an ice-cream van.  

 

This afternoon I was pushing my bike home  

next to the museum, under those golden elms  

and saw a man on the fallen leaves,  

spread-eagled  

like an unseasonal snow angel.  

My tires crunched as I passed.  

 

Swift in the blue breeze, I thought of him.  

I wondered if he heard me, or if our lives crossed  

Like two people playing blind man’s bluff  

on opposite sides of the planet,  

where the seasons are reversed  

and right now spring waits like a bomb.  

 

One big bad thing has happened to me  

every year for the past three years.   

Nothing bad has happened this year,  

though it is only March and every day  

may be bringing it closer. But it has not happened  

 

yet.  

 

The sun on my desk greys like a slow avalanche.  

Summer is ebbing away like a distant headache.  

Soon I will cycle home again,  

 

the world parting and reforming about me  

like the wake of a distant ship.