But you have missed the snowdrops’ promised rise
Again, buried me in a blizzard of forms
As surely as you have gone to the worms,
My heart the hollow that demand supplies.
How simplified, this table of our lives
When broken down by fiscal loss and gain—
Assured, beyond mere mortal debt and pain
Some bureaucratic nonsense will survive.
So working on the porch where once you sat,
With papers spread around me, while the spring
Brings battling birds, all mating on the wing,
A bitter mockery of all we had—
The world will not stop spinning on its axis—
You are still dead, and I must do my taxes.
