Spring jumped the gun, but I’m stuck in the past,

My alternative to this fast-forward

Meltdown. Down the hall my kid clicks toward

His next target as incoming shells blast

A pocky, pixelated landscape, last

Century’s nightmare now live-action chessboard

For first-person shooters, life by the sword

Recast: shot dead, he respawns. Contrast

To those white eggs we found after a round

Of false-promise spring warmth, then a snap frost

Recast the pond in ice, stilled the life bound

In those two orbs, pushed from the nest to crown

Our wall, fractured monument to what could

Have been, the world now strange, the seasons lost.