Another Fir

Here is a spiral notebook, water stained,
its wire unthreading from the pages
to make a jabby wayward serpentine;
here is a pen from the dashboard of the car,
where we keep it to endorse a check or
work a crossword puzzle. The old
technology of writing, half forgotten,
peripheral and quaint. Then will I write a poem?

It will not do. I have two
bathtub sponges standing in as kidneys;
an antique bellows, black and salt-stained,
rigged up for a heart; two
clammy pale filters from an air duct
to do the work of lungs. They gasp and shudder,
and the whole machine works, in its way.
But don't mistake me for a person. Hilarity
will not ensue. Out of the window:

nearer hand, a cedar, almost clear --
behind a fir tree lacking in detail --
and further still and dimmer in the fog
another fir, a phantom full of grief.