In November solemn comfort will prevail
with a thick blanket of frost, when sleep
comes to caress my hair and pour
my wine:  somewhere in the night, deep
where promise resides, not cold
dreaming of belief:  somewhere close
behind, waiting to behold rich
pastures in June, is Cygnus.

All that is left
in the garden are the broken brooms
we used as stakes for the tomatoes
you canned, leaves becoming mulch, and snow:
somewhere in the back room is a box
of buttons my mother left me, the attic is empty, vast
in a slow sunlight where dust dances frenzied
like pollen in lust, waiting to spawn

in the pastures at dawn, or finding
a similar end on the sidewalk
that runs down along the bend.
To enter the castle we must undermine the foundation,
to float above in a dream beyond the gray of stone.