Late February

The first warm day, 
and by mid-afternoon 
the snow is no more 
than a washing
strewn over the yards,
the bedding rolled in knots 
and leaking water, 
the white shirts lying 
under the evergreens. 
Through the heaviest drifts 
rise autumn’s fallen 
bicycles, small carnivals 
of paint and chrome, 
the Octopus
and Tilt-A-Whirl 
beginning to turn
in the sun. Now children, 
stiffened by winter 
and dressed, somehow, 
like old men, mutter 
and bend to the work 
of building dams.
But such a spring is brief; 
by five o’clock
the chill of sundown, 
darkness, the blue TVs 
flashing like storms
in the picture windows, 
the yards gone gray, 
the wet dogs barking 
at nothing. Far off 
across the cornfields
staked for streets and sewers, 
the body of a farmer 
missing since fall
will show up
in his garden tomorrow, 
as unexpected
as a tulip.