This is quite good. By far not your best, to toss your words back at you with good humor, but still clean and beautiful in its way. Your strength, I think, lies in your ability to strip images down; to discard the clutter. It probably helps that, having to live with, in, winter, I relate to this on a visceral level (although I don't necessarily see winter as something to be endured--countless shades of gray have their own beauty, especially in stony, stark, wintry New England).
The "state of American poetry"? Hmmm. What would that be, other than utter decline? Can the Internet and its accompanying "pimple poetry," as you like to call it, save the art form? Maybe! Have you read Dana Gioia's "Can Poetry Matter?" resurrected since his ascension? Interesting, if nothing new and perhaps more depressing than not. No doubt you have, but to be found here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/gioia/gioia.htm.
Fa la la la la.