Sixteen below. Our care like stranded hulls

litter all day our little Avenues.

It was 28 below.

No one goes anywhere. Fabulous calls

to duty clank. Icy dungeons, though,

have much to mention to you.

At Harvard & Yale must Pussy-cat be heard

in the dead of winter when we must be sad

and feel by the weather had.

Chrysanthemums crest, far way, in the Emperor’s garden

and, whenever we are, we must beg always pardon

Pardon was the word.

Pardon was the only word, in ferocious cold

like Asiatic prisons, where we live

and strive and strive to forgive.

Melted my honey, summers ago. I told

her true & summer things. She leaned an ear

in my direction, here.