The yard is a bright rectangle
white and orderly as a newly made bed—
like yours last June, the nurses
hurrying in with fresh white sheets right after
they carried you out
in the long black sack
that hid your body's curves and dips,
dark cloud of vinyl on a gurney
rolling down the fluorescent halls
clanking metal wheels
as the man from the funeral home
bumped you over the last doorjamb—
and I am thinking, now
of all that hides beneath this snow,
still falling as I write this—
trowel and rake left lying on the grass,
small fallen branches,
the dog's tennis ball, worn from play.
