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It’s snowing in Montauk this morning—or so
the radio tells us—not so far as the crow
flies from where Manhattan rises on its darkness
of rock, but far in other ways: a sandy limb
of land stretching east in its fierce lace of surf
and cold circuit of sea-round stones seeming
to say go farther than I can take you—distances
are what we have imagination for.

Lying in bed in the snowless city, the sleepless
night behind, the unseen garbage trucks braking and yawning
below, the radio on low, I remember standing
on that beach long ago. There was snow then, too, soft
white glims falling out of the white sky
lining everything with light: the dead brown thickets,
the sparse and leaning pines, the motels sleeping
with their storm shutters up, their neon unplugged until spring.