Specifics

First week of January and the ceiling square

framed by skylight brightens a bit earlier.

It’s noticeable this morning when the light

amplified by accumulating snowflakes,

first appears as a glowing blue screen.

The storm wasn’t supposed to amount to much

more than a dusting, but the road is covered.

Who believes the weatherman?

Surely not those who plundered market shelves

of their milk, eggs, bread, and toilet paper.

Snow has a way of honoring the platonic

even as it conceals the specific.

Pine, House, Hydrant, Car each reduced

to its most essential and austere.

Even Man and Woman.

As long as the snow falls, that illusion, necessity,

can be placed on hold while we explore the white, green year,

walking the woods and fields that buffer the town

from the abandoned highways and the strip malls.

We’ll return home to shovel out the specifics.

Our car, our sidewalk, our driveway. Inside,

coffee with milk, scrambled eggs, and a fresh roll

of paper hanging in the bathroom.