If April is the cruellest month
November is the greyest
first breath between harvest and ice moon
shivery damp
whipwind that makes your bones feel like midnight at three in the afternoon
and spring’s greening seduction too far off
to put a dent in this relentless chill

My November is heart-cold, but not entirely unfeeling.
It’s chamomile tea / crispy leaves / naked trees
the proverbial witch’s tit.

My November is scorpion’s tail, archer’s bow,
turquoise, tundra. Frozen stump. Grey Cup hangover.
It’s rooting around the winter-clothing drawer to find two gloves that match;
for a wool scarf that doesn’t smell like it lived three lifetimes in grandma’s purse.
It’s finding $20, a dead chapstick and a linty butterscotch Lifesaver
in the pocket of the parka you haven’t worn since last march.

My November is molasses cookies and grilled cheese sandwiches
that somehow comfort like nothing else — except maybe oatmeal that comes
in a stout brown bottle.

My November is morning dark / so heavy-foggy dark
that even vitamin B and triple espresso
can’t lift its drugged cloak of sluggishness

My November is a sensible winter tread / echinacea and liniment
It’s the raven, the chickadee,
pre-hibernation grizzly bear sex
and it’s my birthday.
It’s coming up on my birthday
and I don’t want cake!

I want cool red shoes that won’t crash my arches.
I want my golf swing back. I want the lungs — the dance moves — that I had when i was 20. I want this nagging pain gone from my right shoulder,
a good night’s sleep, lessons in kindness.

I don’t want cake! I want world peace (of course)
… right after I achieve world domination.

I don’t want cake, I want a box of paints,
a cherry red Mini Cooper,
pants that don’t keep shrinking.
I want the red wine I drink tonight
to not stick out its impertinent tongue at me tomorrow morning
from the bathroom mirror — which ought to come with a label
that says, “Warning: Objects may be shallower than they appear.”

It’s coming up on my birthday and I want
all the things I asked for but never got
like: an Etcha-Sketch; a Man From U.N.C.L.E. lunchbox; a Slinky.
A buckskin jacket with fringe down the sleeves;
a set of six-guns with a ruby-studded holster;
and oh, yeah, your impertinent tongue wrapped around my lonely middle finger.

It’s coming up on my birthday, baby, and I don’t want cake. I want …
Dammit, I want one dirty weekend with the one that got away.
I want a piano that stays in tune,
a dollar for every time in my life I’ve been called sir,
a card in the mail from my mom and dad …
a fishin’ day.

I want … time. At least another 30 years to get it right.
I want for there always to be more questions than answers.

And I want, just once,
to be able to write my name in the snow.

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