Late April in Upstate New York

Grateful for the errand that’s
put me on this rolling back road,
I’m about convinced to declare it Spring.
Through glass, the bright sun’s warm.
The wooded hills shimmer: gauzy light green.

A good ways off, I zero-in on an old man
backing out the door of a run-down farm house.
I see him clearly as he turns,
his skull-stark face a shock
off-set by the way he’s dressed:
sport shirt buttoned at the jowls,
his cardigan a dapper match.

He looks plenty spry, the part in his slicked-down hair
straight as the furrows he used to plow.
Just as I’m passing by
he steps from the sagging porch,
throws his beak up and, squint-blind,
aims a gap-toothed grin at the sun —
his death mask cracked open like an eggshell.