equinox

3 days before the first day of spring,
winter is fighting back with a vengeance. Pearly bleached teeth
on the 5 o’clock news allege
that wooly clouds from the north
swallowed the sun whole, licked the first green leaves off the trees,
and forced us all indoors to kneel on our arthritic knees.

Secret government emails suggest that the sun is actually holed up
in a large hay barn outside Ashland, Kentucky,
self barricaded with semi-automatic weapons, moonshine,
along with 625 concubines and their daughters.
All the snipers are in place. Negotiators are bored, hungry,
and needing to fuck their underling’s wives. Navy Seals in space suits are prepared
to haul the carcass back
and staple gun it to the sky. They understand instinctively
that no one will know the difference.

We watch the 24 hour news channel
in case they interrupt regularly scheduled executions
to report the imminent return. Looking out the window
reminds us of all the sunny days
before manhood took hold and the weight
of 150 generations of fathers was strapped to our backs
bending our noses to the ice covered sidewalks.

Umbrellas are useless. All the buttons
have fallen off our coats. Our scarves are threadbare.
What little warmth we have
escapes from our balding heads
and skates away in muddy gutters.