Lines Written at a Kitchen Table in March

We wished it was Autumn, but to no avail.
A spruce, clacking its screechy branches
on the window, the leaves had long decayed.
Matted into the ground.

I once thought you were everything -
night and day, the seed of all happiness,
and when I lost you, every action
became a vain trifle.
Like sneezing in a church.

The world is different now.
On the sidewalk, people laugh.
You are nothing more than a candy bar
wrapper. And all these pieces of broken
windshield, they glitter in the sun.

I have something else to look forward to -
a spring and another thousand seasons.
The rose on the cover of a book
I have yet to read.