the steam at the edge of your glasses

in the long early hour
between coffee and showering
I quiet my clamoring
body in borderless layers
the way snow mutes a city,
so even in this winter-
gray cloud-lit morning,
everything sounds like a sunrise.

unbinding into the day

after dawn,
diamond-cold winter,
before the sun
has climbed over houses
across the street,
their smokestacks billowing
white streams back-lit
against newborn blue sky
flowing out into the east
bound wind.