If I could blame it all on the weather, the snow like the cadaver's table, the trees turned into knitting needles, the ground as hard as a frozen haddock, the pond wearing its mustache of frost. If I could blame conditions on that, if I could blame the hearts of strangers striding muffled down the street, or blame the dogs, every color, sniffing each other and pissing on the doorstep... If I could blame the bosses and the presidents for their unpardonable songs... If I could blame it on all the mothers and fathers of the world, they of the lessons, the pellets of power, they of the love surrounding you like batter... Blame it on God perhaps? He of the first opening that pushed us all into our first mistakes? No, I'll blame it on Man For Man is God and man is eating the earth up like a candy bar and not one of them can be left alone with the ocean for it is known he will gulp it all down. The stars (possibly) are safe. At least for the moment. The stars are pears that no one can reach, even for a wedding.