Crooked Meditation on Early Winter

Embank me, o’ envelope of low thought.
No longer longing for anything worldly,
The bum and I together pray for nought.

In spires of trees the rapture of burley
Bludgeons the name of a lover who’s gone,
As if it were a sad little song. The rain

Has come! the rain has come into dawn!
O’ morning canter, plow clean this lane
With strokes of wings above the cityscape

And melting Christ-faced snowmen by the curb.
Bring green women of bushes to undrape,
And fish in newsprint to ruin the suburbs.

An old woman smoking through her teeth
Has won the scratch off lotto underneath.