Potential

The streets are empty
like the pews on Saturday.
My scuffed dress shoes sound
hollow against the parking lot asphalt;
they tick-tock rhythmically,
led by my pendulum legs.

The night's faint snowfall disappeared
when the meek heat of the early-March sun
crested the mountains.
The sky is bright, the wind subtle but piercing;
dead trees awaken quietly,
buds pushing from their bare branches.

Winter lifts from the landscape--
its skirt of snow pulls back,
seductively
revealing naked mountain thighs.

My own mind also thaws--
my dreams and thoughts expand, large and swollen
like hot-air balloons,
rising up and high toward the blooming sun,
to fly forever
or melt and join Icarus.

I step up three concrete steps
into the porchway shadow.
I look over the familiar whitewashed door,
raw metal exposed under large scratches
left by couches or children.
I put my hand to the dull golden doorknob--
cold from the air of the changing season--
and turn.