the groundhog's shadow

Gray skies and fourteen snowflakes
remind me of your right eye,
the piercing cold of bold woman
and winter's refusal to end,

the long dark, then sunlight reflected
on smooth bark of yellow birch.
Lush spring sidles up to my weary heart
and beats back torpid melancholy as

Gray skies and thirty egotistic snowflakes
fall past a tiny bit of me.
A rancor on the wind rasps away my skin
leaving me red, sore and sad. Still

spring is here, well, maybe not but
it's near. My memories of your smile
on a lonely December night blanket
the moment and I find my way on

back out into the world of gone.
Yes, I know you know, but the world's just so
the tiniest whispers are true
there's no place for me, that i can see
no place for me with you