for my brother David on his 59th birthday

Apartment buildings
rise in time-lapsed
construction.

Their parking lots
fill with cars
that start
to come and go
like ants in lines of labor
faster and faster.

Inside, on the wall,
the fluttering
day calendar
sheds its leaves
like confetti.

Last fall snapped
like a twig.

Winter opened and closed
like the door of a freezer.

This spring, a sneeze.

The coming summer, a sigh.

Swoosh . . .