DECEMBER TULIPS

I thought tulips

were coming up through the December ground.

What they were, I don’t know,

perhaps misguided tulips.

And so, like someone

Underground or windowless,

unable to judge the light left,

to see rain strike morning’s shadows,

I forgot the season,

the date, the clouds

that promised an end

to matted leaves, muddy fields.

On a reprehensible street

of porches chaired by tattered sofas,

hedges full of bottles,

as the day shivered,

I found myself

in momentary April

walking oddly

beneath a kited sky.

No one was near to set me straight,

so I walked on, expecting warm rain

and pollen breezes, while broken bits of Christmas

blazed up like Easter.