In Winter
the stone pool in the garden shrinks, green scum turns gray, and the cold shadows of crows flying overhead trace scuff marks on the ice. Deep down on the bottom, the reflection of a single star is caught like an old fishhook, harmless as a discarded ideal, smaller than some child's hand at Pompeii. But on the coldest nights, when sounds of traffic are only a little smoke at the edge of the mind, a finger of light reaches up invisible and tries to touch the air.