Matins, By LOUISE GLUCK

I see it is with you as with the birches:

I am not to speak to you

in the personal way. Much

has passed between us. Or

was it always only

on the one side? I am

at fault, at fault, I asked you

to be human--I am no needier

than other people. But the absence

of all feeling, of the least

concern for me--I might as well go on

addressing the birches,

as in my former life: let them

do their worst, let them

bury me with the Romantics,

their pointed yellow leaves

falling and covering me.

From “The Wild Iris” (Ecco: $19.95; 63 pp.).

1992 by Louise Gluck. Reprinted by permission . These are austere, spare poems, set in chilly winter weather.