Before Snow

With the air so clear, the world outside
is hardly a world at all, rather a depth
of incredible diversity-- each street spans
as far as the last tiny building or bridge
where my eyeline temporarily halts.
The cold scrapes like sandpaper, my fingers
do not feel attached, everything is strafed
equally by the cold that slips between thing
and itself like a knife around an unbaked pie crust.
As the first flakes tip the grass blades,
one feels the grass to be chapped as lips,
but uncomplaining, without even a lick
to taste the coming scab. Nothing but you
needs reasons for the cold, and you can't help but feel
that the street's whole inanimate population
has felt sorry for you for a long time.