Clouds
--Fanny Howe 

There's a softening
To the bricks outside
And the thousand-mile storm
Is leaving where it's coming from:
From the long-ago to my abode. 

I'll sit at the window
Where it's safe to say no.
I won't go out, I won't work
For a living, I'll study the clouds
Becoming snow. 

Not with a spyglass
But with a wild guess
And only three words: "You never know."
Now I see others like me
Thinning into the least thing 

And drifting out like the frost of dust.
Downstairs, cries of lust.
Up here, a requiem mass
And light to lead the clouds home
To the past. All of us, poor at last.