Thick ice in the driveway’s pothole thaws.

Three birds discover the puddle. I watch

from my warm, mouse-colored sofa as

they flop and shriek, bouncy in the frigid

water, dip and shake. Is that a robin

now, orange-breasted splashing, bobbing

then ascending into still-winter air,  

feathers sopping, lungs sharpened. Hope

takes off beneath an open banquet of sky.

I sip my coffee—think of nectar and you.

You’ve made potato soup thickened with sour cream.

I’ve baked apple tart for after when we sip milky coffee,

read subtitles. How did we step into this renovated version

of us, both descended from grandparents who warmed beside

wood-burning stoves, ate their biscuits, bacon, and gravy,

grateful for spring to sow the vegetable patch. Then canned

sweet corn, string beans, and beefy tomatoes. They aired

bed linens before retiring eternally to framed family trees,

names only, hanging in the den near photos of cloudless hillsides

we hiked, finding nature on vacation from our offices of labor.

To carry the town to work

in the morning, home at night,

a new lane is being laid.

Men and women in the margins

of the current street move the dirt,

drive machines that eat old concrete,

raw earth. I watch them at their tasks

while I wind along to market, visit

a friend, connect to the highway

beyond. This two-lane isn’t narrow

anymore, compromises made—generous

lawns gouged, dogwoods and deer excised—

to carry the town to work in the morning,

the endless way home at night.