December
Where the plan was made
that predicted how
this half-light, horizontal and grey,
would reach just in time
the waiting roofs it’s touching now
above the city that precisely fits
into this year: the sluttish,
jaded but still sublime
bend of the gracht, the sooty
pride of gilded facades. What of all this
still filters into the slow-
ly tilting head of the man below
you in the street
with his cap of matted hair,
three coats, a supermarket trolley full
of plastic, as he stands for an age
beyond endurance on one leg, like a gull,
in the first hesitant snow.
How, according to plan,
this too is already past, now that your hand
is turning the last calendar page.
