I’ve only just woken and look
out the back window: a wind-swept
plastic bag I saw yesterday
in front of the house in dying
sunlight breathing icy spirits
in and out of its possession

if the flow of things had taken
it away while I slept I’d have
forgotten it altogether

slightly unnatural faded
yellow unmistakable in
the rigid drifts of snow it is
silently presenting me with
evidence of things that I did

not commit

to memory