We spoke last month—
A bygone era.
In the park you photographed the birds:
The variety of ducks in the wetland,
The stray, courting cardinals,
And the eager chickadees that repeated
On the thin branches of the lakeside brush;
The mellow piping made us forget a minute
Of the cold February weather.

And afterwards, I told you of
What you may call the sin of love,
What I had dreamed the spring would bring:
Delivery of novel things.
The sunlight dancing off the streams,
The paths we stroll a handsome pair—
Now nothing fair is left to dream.

The steel light of evening stains the gull-polluted river.
The robins and starlings nag from the treetops, barking
Hopeless hymns to the dim and empty ether.
The stoneflies swarm and breed on park benches,
The rain-clogged swale catches dead leaves like a gutter,
And in the air the stench of spring—