Last Year

At winter's end, the sanded streets;

The cracked rubber boots on the porch,

And the blood taste of salt in the throat.

In the closet my winter coat

Is hung for the season; your note

Of leaving in the right front pocket

With a pen, a box of matches,

And a forgotten five-dollar bill.

Springtime is for remembering,

As the earth remembers to yield.

Yet the wind blows the new sown seeds

Into the street by the corn field.

Then the rains will come and a few

Green things will be allowed to grow.

But most will be run into the river:

A yellow scum on the water.

Last summer we shucked sweet corn

And dropped live lobsters into pots

Of roiling water; and you mourned

Your childhood of blue crabs and bay sand

And told how your brother's friend had died

Diving into an unsounded pond.

"What was that poor kid's name?"

You asked. "I remember his hair was blond,

And fell in a wave over his eyes."

In Autumn you first spoke of leaving,

As life takes its leave, day by day,

Sometimes slow as a tumor,

And sometimes quick, as a snake

With indifferent emerald eyes,

Will surprise some soft, warm thing,

Its belly full of unborn young.

EDIT: supposed to be four octets but I can't reddit