T. Stores

melt in the spring-shrunk shadow
of my neighbor’s house, an old fellow,

no more than ten years past my father’s
age, died before the thaw, quietly gone, the papers

and mail stopped or re-directed, window shades drawn.
Beside the sundial and garden bench where he sat one dawn

and I brought his paper from the box,
a quick detour from morning run, and stopped

to chat, a vernal pool shivers with an April Fool’s Day
breeze, and two robins pull chilled worms from mud. He stays

alive and absent here, as if he has only
just stopped speaking. Passing, I hear the cry, phoebe!

the first this spring, perhaps last summer’s bird returned,
or her descendant, her hatchling, or some other traveler,

to nest beneath eaves of hollowed
house, birth life, depart, and on promise of melting snow,

return.