I.
Houses: this one and that.
They never existed, even
though someone stands at the window,
smoking and someone else sees
the glow: a temporary problem.
A book, margins scratched, sentences
underscored with fingernails–the pen
is already gone, last week's snow, quick:
a poem about snow, commit it, take it to heart.

II.
Charon stutters. His words fall
and he knows half
mourning they are gathered
in the stony candles
he sees while going back
and forth, in and out, fearing
the light and the noise. He hopes
one day he'll sing and the hole
will close behind his song.

III.
A child holds a bowl
filled to the brim, sees
the gray mighty butterfly
sip and flit. A child—
goes to herd sheep
in darkness. A child—
is desired, before all dust. Snow
falls in a different time: there was,
there was–