The Softening

I walked to the bin in my shirtsleeves,

the air suddenly thick and too kind.

It felt like a secret I shouldn't have heard,

a soft, damp palm against the back of my neck.

In the gutter, a wool mitten is heavy with slush,

soaking up the gray tea of the street.

The asphalt is steaming, a black, porous lung

breathing under a sun that doesn't know

how much of the world it has already killed.