Winter

The light's already fading at midday,
or at least the shadow of its decline is near,
deflating my intentions

It's too cold to face
the wind off the beach;
I want to be coddled not braced.
And, scrimping on heat,
too cold to care
about the dust bunnies and shriveled leaves
dropping off the salvaged summer plants.

The tattered thread of one afternoon,
arriving home in the dark,
unskeins through the long hours till bed
and accelerates when daylight breaks,
unrolling through the blankness of January
toward the tendrils of spring,
its roots firmly planted in the way we age