Crocus

I go out to move my car in the late morning, and the sun has already thawed the last piles of snow on the sidewalk. By the time the street sweeper has passed, I have taken my coat off, stand chatting with a neighbor on the corner of 6 and B in nothing more than a sweatshirt, beaming into the midday sun. I forget the cloud that's been sitting on my chest and run spontaneous errands from the sheer ease of it. The numbers are plummeting.

On the way home, a man catches up to me on Fourth street, says hello, says I've been seeing you walk by my shop for at least 5 years and, he pauses, looks sheepish, like he ran first and thought after, I just thought I should say hi. You recognize New York winking at you from a mile away, know we're both just lying in the ground, feeling the warmth at the end of our tendrils. 

Just a little longer now, you hear it whisper, careful, but certain. Just a little longer and we can sprout again. 

Can begin to recover
all that we lost in the war.