STRAIGHT AND TALL and puffed out against the cold, a full-grown Cooper’s hawk surveyed the morning from a tree. A faint mist from melting snow hung under the gathering rain clouds. The immense red ribbon on a townhouse’s roofline wreath lifted and fell in the breeze. Salt crust still coated the roadways. Apart from a spatter here and there, the rain kept holding off, but it couldn’t be trusted to stay held off long enough to skip the train and walk. A few of the strands of tinsel in a discarded Christmas tree stirred as the drizzle strengthened outside the city vaccination bus. The chill got through the hair to the scalp, but not so badly as to make it worth digging out the hat. The wind came downhill hard on the way home from the subway.
