Mountain Garden

In winter, heat first arrives as a vertical wish.

Somewhere deep in a park

inside the nowhere between

night and morning

shadows wave on barely audible ground

and from behind a fence

the smell of paraffin

awakens the iron of other stars

older than death and touch-a-two-skins.

There is a pressing - projecting.

Comes cover and it is coldest

before dawn. My mouth sings to itself.

The wind is joyless.

I will sleep under the grass

and in the morning I will

create a new calendar

to make sure I live a full century.

Tomorrow there will be flowers

and a few summers worth

of drinking.