For a Birthday

For a Birthday

Today is the anniversary
of your coming into the world naked and screaming.
You've learned some subtlety since then.
"In the bleak midwinter," the world frozen solid.
Outside, a neighbor is already stirring,
snow shovel scraping the concrete.
You tug the blanket closer and consider
the shape of the day, the chaste grey contours;
cold milk, the book you'd been saving,
ice on the pine tree, maybe some music.
Remember the blizzard year, when you turned eleven,
the backyard like Siberia? Still,
here you are, an autonomous state,
a little remote, mysterious to strangers.