bagging winter

there is a moment
in spring yard cleanup
after we have picked up
crusty pages of embalmed love letters
pillar-to-post plastic bags
and after we have scraped the dried packed
copper-patina leaves off the flowerbeds
and into long straggling phalanxes
across the resurgent grass
at that moment, when the spring heat hits
and my face is almost down
in the big bag with the leaves
scooped into it
and the spice of distant autumn flows
into my sinuses like memories
of last autumn’s pumpkin pie
at that moment
I feel the hard hands of someone
bending down over the rows of leaves
years ago doing the same
winter harvest
and I hear the horse nearby
chomping sweet spring shoots
and the heat sings to me like steel bands
clamping a rain barrel together