it's something
to realize you're nothing
to somebody else -
     blue smoke rising
     from a farther hill . . .
 

a drizzly day,
with yellow leaves pasted
to wet black pavement -
returning the library books
she left behind . . .
 

bittersweet in such plenty,
an orange-and-yellow mist
that wants telling . . .
if she will not answer my letters,
        if she will not
 

to the east
the fiery windows of sunset,
in the slush at the curb
           a dead pigeon . . .
what's done is done
 

along the winter streets,
the lifeless streets
of yellow window lights
and leafless trees, I pass
       - a click of cleats