Spring with your disheveled mouths beginning
to open. Glad I am for doorways.
For a simple frame.

In winter I allow you to guess correctly
that I was sleeping. The paw of me
placed over the snout of me. My friends
the dead flowers in a windowbox
nowhere I knew where my friends were.

I allow you to guess correctly. The confidence
you will gain will make speaking -
a tomcat sprays the dogwood - blooming.

Hello. I was forgotten. When my jaw at first
unlocks I will say no one has loved me as much.

"Spring Thaw" appears in In No One's Land, Ahsahta Press, 2007.