Small berms of snowice and cigarette
butts line beneath the awning sidewalks
of Yulitsa Pushkinska, impenetrable.

We have yet to decide
how to slice ourselves open, how to
conspire for casualties. Desire
lingers like four days’ melt mid-winter.

Who really feels day to day that
nothing will change? This faith
in schedules, taxes, credits, furtive
moments with a familiar lover, this
lack of spasms and undramatic intent
can suffice for half a lifetime, but you’ve
become an unreliable narrator in your own
novel, prone to
wild speculation and impulsive looks
at other women.