Deadheading

This cloudy day, you do 
deadheading of the brown and 
brittle blooms that never let go 
even as the cold strikes down all 
other vegetation. This small violence 
is supposed to encourage denser growth 
after winter, make vengeance out of 
luxuriant comeback. But this and other 
ordinary chores seem weightier or more 
premonitory than usual. The blades, 
precise but indifferent. On the stove, 
the kettle's strident hiss. In the mail, 
not a letter in flowing script but bill 
after bill, cramped with figures spelling 
out debt. You put away the shears, pour 
hot water into a mug for tea which you 
will drink with lemon and honey. 
You water the drooping pilea and 
in half an hour see it visibly revive. 
The laundry you fold smells of clean 
sunlight. Through the window, you see 
that the sky is still not blue, 
though it is still the sky.