An Old Marriage

I see summer where the winter was, time, a fish breaking water. You say time is never surprising. I say it is like an idea come out of nowhere. You say, ‘in the beginning was . . .’ I don’t listen. Nowhere is a lie. Winter is where summer was, they remember each other. Look, a cardinal just flew past my frosty window. I am wrong talking like this, I say summer resembles winter, a hellish icy cold memory. If they could speak and we could hear them, they might just be comedians (spring and autumn tragedians): ‘You’re too hot.’ ‘You’re too cold.’ ‘A little more respect,’ winter says, ‘because I am older than you. Summer, you play me in Australia and Argentina.’ Reader, I am content with all seasons, truest words first spoken ‘Mama, Papa.’ Although summer and winter may wear each other’s clothes, only the mostly blind confuse the sun and the moon. There are summer prayers and winter prayers. There will always be, as long as the weather changes. There are the lawless luxuries of love poems, and there are poems of disagreement that get down in the gutter and fight.