The Poem Where He Gives Up

On a train to Home in February
(we’re taught to always include setting when we write)
I pass an abandoned hill,
As if nature had given up early,
Deciding this was not the right spot
For a second Mt. Everest.

In winter trees get introspective.
Where else do their leafy thoughts go in the cold?

Long rows of stony walls crumbling
Look like the ribs of the earth.
As a kid I believed in dreams, and dreamt that
All fences were body parts, and all body parts fences.

I too get introspective in winter-
Sometimes I wonder what a fifth season would be like,
Wedged between spring and summer.
Would we have a new kind of sleet to go with it,
Or just more snow?

Or what if alternate universes do exist,
Parallel and strange of course,
Where school buses are painted fire-truck red (school bus red)
And fire trucks are painted school bus yellow.

They inhabit the streets of a Dayton, Ohio
Just like our Dayton, Ohio,
And I write this exact poem,
On this same cold Sunday,
Only with those little bits
About the colors reversed.
(how strange those red fire trucks look!)

We’re taught that poems always need strong endings.
But sometimes I can’t bring myself to say what I mean,
Somehow I can’t look in your sleepy eyes,
And tell you I’m leaving this universe.