It's snowing quietly, pale dust on roofs and sidewalks, pale glimmer under streetlight. No passing cars mar the snow-sheened road. Windows are dark. Everyone seems to be asleep--except for me, except for Chuck, except, I'm sure, for the family two doors down with the brand-new baby.

Already on this dark morning I've been rereading poem drafts . . . two new ones over the past two days, one set in lake sunshine, the other on a midnight forest trail. My rereading is tender. It is weary. Brand-new babies demand everything.

The room is still. Two pots of rosemary cluster against a gray windowpane. A philodendron glints in a dusky corner. Last night's wood fire has burned down to ash.

In this silvery hour, my two poem drafts chirp and sigh. I run a finger down a margin, trace the thin space between stanzas, prick myself on a comma.

All around us, snowflakes drift slowly, slowly through taut air.