In Boston today the trains wait

on tracks. Trucks push piles of snow

up piles of snow. No one’s getting in

or going out. Hours of coffee

and cable news, a folding table

forms the space a jigsaw puzzle

frames and fills, the picture taking

shape as every figure outside’s

slowly rounded, mounded under

a daylong fade to white.

I wait for night to come without

its dark, for flakes to taper off

and clouds to pull apart, for stars

and the day’s accumulated

falling to reflect their light, luster

offered up by streets I knew

till now, each house a ghost against

the sky. I hold my breath. Tonight

I will not shut my eyes.