A Walk After Being Let Go
There was a maple thick with cardinals red as apples
at the park yesterday, their wings filling the empty space,
their voices singing out in a discordant racket,
like children shrieking as they run, drunk with the joy
of running. I was staggering under the weight of the future,
a ghost draped in wet wool, slushing through ice-melt
to see the holes in the pond worn by the warming weather
like moths. In a month I will be jobless. In a month,
there will be hard little buds like raised fists along the branches.
In a month, the days will be opening wide as the mouths of tulips,
as a cat’s rising yawn. There will be sunlight like a tongue
licking the sooty streets clean of all the winter grime,
and I will be free to finally do the work I’ve always wanted—
releasing the red birds trapped in the blank page.