The fire went out last night, and now the chairs are too cold to sit on and the coffee cups rattle in their saucers.

All week I've felt water-logged and unproductive. Yet it turns out that in fact I have written poems, revised poems, read books, submitted work, received rejections, copied out other people's poems, applied for a grant, written a teaching syllabus, played music, cooked meals, run errands, dealt with my son's college applications, and gone snowshoeing. I wonder why that still feels like nothing? Brains can be so silly.

And this morning I'm bringing in the car for an oil change, which means sitting in a greasy old chair reading The New Yorker, glancing occasionally at ragged deer-hunting and air-filter posters while the minus-zero cold creeps up from the cement floor and shy men in trucker hats nod at me, half-pleased, half-alarmed, as they pass by. It's a sweet enough way to spend an hour, except for the frozen feet.