New Year’s Day
my overalls stained
with last year’s garden

morning star —
frost in the paperboy’s
bicycle tracks

New Year's Day —
bleaching work shirts
back to white

funeral’s end —
a pine bough sloughs
its burden of snow

ice storm —
the great buck’s antlers
devoured by mice

freezing rain
one unwed year
into the next

late for work —
the flutter of leaves
under my wiper

week after Christmas
an empty throne
in the mall

snow-covered cornfield
the wild geese
in rows

single living
I allow the tea kettle
a full whistle