ice in the driveway this morning

first February

when it snows
you are not here
you don’t wear
the blue down coat

you don’t stump back
from the mailbox 
hatless gloveless sockless
laughing

winter boots 
unlaced and flapping
stepping in
your own prints out

sound like a memory
I don't need the last stanza about boots
I'd let it end with the laughing

I love that last stanza... the laughing line could serve as an end line following the boots, etc.
in fact it might stand alone balancing the opening line.

This is definitely a keeper poem.

You sure do pack a punch into a few words.  Dewell

Karen 

I like the last stanza.  (I would make it present tense unlace, flap, as you step . . . .)

I feels like the poem is a description of a loved one in stanza one, a caretaker number two, and a child stanza three.  I like the slant of this being a spouse who is no longer able to be there for the persona.

TS

I so appreciate your input.  I am working to put together a chapbook? a collection? and I'm pulling out old work to determine if it has potential.  Any advice to do with rewriting -- or assembling a group of poems -- welcome!  This poem came from a couple of lines in a piece that appeared to be exceptionally maudlin garbage.  

I'm reading what I can find to see what successful poets do, or have done.  So far I've determined that rewriting is hard work dammit and I need to saddle up for the long haul.  And figuring out how to organize a book of poems is about as mysterious as making gumbo.

Karen,   I love this poem. It is a movie.  Out and back in.  You have to leave the last stanza in. I like the sound as it is read aloud.  A real keeper.

Dennis  Couldn't sign is as me!  Well, not true. I signed in but it wouldn't let me send.  Will try as Ben.

I like it.  Even the last stanza.  Fun to image.