outside in the night,
i cannot tell if it is raining
or if the wind is breathing itself through the trees;
my unopen window muffles the distinction.
if it is the wind,
then it cannot be winter;
there are no leaves in winter
of the type that sing the sound of thirst and water,
of lovers ripening in the fields.
winter leaves are either huddled in small heaps by gutters
or quick-paced alone, striding toward unlived-in houses,
rounding corners of midnight,
chased by dogs and ghosts under chilly lights;
theirs is the sound of dry bones
dragging across stone and pavement.

still, every so often, a single leaf snags itself
on the bottom of a closed door and waits there
for someone's winter knuckles to come rap on the wood,
that the door may open like glimmers of a dawn,
that sun streaks may enter, and freely walk down corridors,
and bend into rooms, and pry open every painted window.
certain of our complacencies are uneasy at this:
that the scent of day should mix with floorboard dust,
that the bee from last year sleeping on the sill
should be nudged by new air.