to hold a space
between autumn and spring
to buffer the pain
and take the blame
But winter, it turns out,
muffles the quiet
and the little death of time
with his own heart, buried
gale-force fragility in white, falling
over everything
And while there still appears
an invitation to the spring formal
in his mailbox every year
he stopped attending long ago
finally understanding it was only
an artifact of a polite society
which had also been stranded
holding a space
