Poem a Day: 16

I Will Not Make This About the Weather

I tell myself, waking
to the stillness
that suggests
another blanket of snow
lies outside
the closed curtains.

Yoga at 5:30 AM
makes me melt.
A man with long hair
groans rhythmically
as we move,
sweating,
saying uh uh uh uh
as if making love
to the burning room.

At breakfast Lizzie says:
"We read haikus
in class yesterday and
my favorite went something
like this:
Writing shitty poems about snow/
for the rich/
is not art"

I say: "Was that Basho?"
And wipe the crumbs
off the counter
Instead of:
I don't like haikus and
I don't like 20 degrees and
I can't hold myself for more
than 10 seconds in plank
with my right arm up
and weighted and
do you have everything
you need for school
before I push you out
the door and taste
the silence?

"It was Basho or
Buzon or Iko or
some other guy
I can't remember."

As for weather:
no new snow.
Just a strange meanness
that wanders the street
like a cold fog.

Two houses down,
a FOR SALE sign
appears in the lawn
overnight
and I'm glad:
the taciturn couple
have never smiled
as they move in
and out of their cars.
They managed to
have a baby we
didn't see until he
was walking.
Once the man, who
went with JR, next door,
to high school, said
to him: Keep your kids
off our yard.

Meanness hangs on
the frozen wires.
Meanness bubbles out
of the sump pump,
freezing the grass.
Meanness lies
at the bottoms of
these glasses as I
wash them.

Writing shitty poems
about the weather
is not art