Early March

Everything rumored about March is true.
You brute month, you howling monster month. 

          Iron-willed March, intractable March,
          you will bend a knee. You will give way.

April could only be the cruelest if there were no March.
We’re worn down from climate change’s ferocity: 

          the heaping snowy mounds that came this year
          and its bitter cold.

We’ve done our duty like good soldiers.
We’ve weathered the unthinkable. 

          We ring hands in anticipation, rub them together
          as if there’s a fire near to warm them, 

and know no matter how brutal March comes in,
there’s sure to be May and June—

          and roses blooming near the doorstep. Then March
          will be nothing more than a memory fading.