Everything goes 

and we bury this thought 

within us 

walking down the unremarkable pavement

covered in leaves

like a year's worth of paperwork,

to-do lists and

unfinished poems

breathing to heaven as we go

while the buildings peek from clouds

and the winter sun 

polishes the world

reminding us beauty can be found at any time 

If you can stay clear headed

enough to find it

so you stop for coffee on James street

and watch the passers in heavy coats

and you try being mindful 

but begin to wonder 

if you’re halfway through all the coffee

you will drink in your life

while watching the waitress

in a snowglobe of light 

and dust motes 

wiping the tables 

as the radio sings

I’ll Be Home For Christmas

and the old man 

in the table next to you

rubs his palm along the crease

of his newspaper 

and for some reason 

you begin to think of your father

in tears at the kitchen sink 

the morning after your mother died

holding the breakfast plate she left 

not knowing she wouldn’t be returning

that day

and you consider

how far we’ve buried ourselves

to have no control 

of our thoughts

or tears

on a bright day as this

as angels hang from the clock

which says 11.12

and outside everything continues

in that way that it does

as you sit back and drink your coffee

and open a book of poems 

by a Russian poet 

who shot himself in the heart 

when he was younger 

than you're now

and outside the sky is white grey

and threatens to snow,

blank like the final pages of a book

or the start of new one.