Damp dust

Sky, swirling black

Cyclone of velvet plumes

And cries. A crow hurtles earthwards

And dies.

• 

Sitting in this glass globe, I watch the snow falling

outside. It is pretty and sometimes I miss lifting

my face to the sky and feeling

the delicate flakes land cold

and then melt, leaving

my face wet and chapped in the winter air.

*

The world shakes and rattles

but in the shelter of my glass house all remains

quiet. I cast stones only at myself and am careful

not to break anything.

*

Here is my Christmas tree, brittle

and bright. It no longer drinks

but is alive. On the mantel, pictures of my children

from years past. The cobwebs I dare not

brush away. They tether the dust that piles

upon trinkets, talismans that dare you

to take my house and shake it, turn it upside down.

Watch the storm of particle gray whirl and rise

then drift back to where it came, a dream, a nightmare

a moment. Another moment. A lifetime.

All will remain unchanged.

*

Outside the wind has begun to roar, whipping

the falling flakes into a frenzied dance.

*

I remember dancing.

And living.

I am ashamed of my cowardice.

I am afraid of the wind. But the snow

is gentle and the sky is black.

*

Perhaps I will toss a stone into the night.

If the broken glass tears my flesh, what of it?

The crimson syrup will fall and spatter

a delicate pattern of roses in the snow.

Will I not look pretty lying in my garden of impossible memories?

It is January.

The cold air bites my face,

not a full, open-jawed bite;

tiny bites, like a fish nipping my legs while I swim,

small, sharp stings on my cheeks

my nose

my forehead.

*

Walk. A walk will lift your spirits.

*

The Christmas decorations have been taken down.

The trees have been discarded, thrown to the ground

at the edge of driveways, waiting to be picked up

by men who will throw them

into trucks and deliver them

someplace to be chopped into dust.

*

It is gray.

There is no snow.

Just a gray sky

and a dry earth

and trees

lifting their arms, begging,

beseeching, reaching their skeletal fingers

grasping for

            grasping for…

*

Move along. There is nothing for you to see here. Only houses.

*

There are only houses

and naked trees.

Houses —

square,

one atop another

on small, ever so small, square, parcels of land.

*

How do people breathe? I wonder.

I cannot breathe.

Walking is supposed to help.

*

I watched my mother go mad.

*

When I was a little girl, my mother once said, “I want a house just like that.”

I knew it was death.

A death house.

I live in such a house. I bought it myself.

*

I realize death is a square.

A box.

A tomb

where you place yourself

and bury yourself alive.

*

Some people do not realize they are dying.

I am choking,

choking up the last bits of my womanhood.

*

Some people live in those boxes.

They are monsters.

They make noise and rattle the walls

and wake their neighbors.

They do not care.

It makes them feel strong.

*

I used to bring my dog with me, but she can no longer walk here.

She has been bitten too many times,

bitten by violent dogs,

sad creatures

kicked and broken by violent men.

*

I see those men, walking out of their square houses,

getting into their trucks-giant trucks

that make up for their small

characters.

*

It is quiet.

I don’t want to die here.

*

I see a black cat sitting atop a stone wall.

It is watching me.

I walk past.

*

Poor dear. I do not wish to bring her bad luck.

Low light delivers

New Year’s painful reckoning

of past eternal

How she got in

I do not know.

She breached the fence

Somehow. Perhaps burrowing under

Like the weeds that invade from the neighboring

Yard. Or maybe she leapt, like a stallion

Over the wooden planks.

*

I watch her through the window.

Gorgeous, predatory,

Ready to lurch and bury herself

Into the leaf pile to play or

To Snatch up the unaware chipmunk and

Sink her teeth into its soft, fur-coated flesh.

*

I envy the fox,

Her bold assertion of her self

Claiming a territory that is not hers to claim;

In the moment, uncaring

Of anything other than her desires

And what sates her appetites.

*

I watch her.

She stands at the edge of the leap, heart

Racing with the anticipatory heat of excitement.

Still. Alive

*

Yet, she knows death.

She screeches in the night

Like an owl or a woman stalked

And caught, her gut about to be cut by the blade

Of a predator whose evils the fox cannot conceive.

The fox screams for her young.

Stay away. Stay away.

*

I watch through the window.

I too am standing at the edge of a leap.

And I remind myself that I too

may live.

When I was eleven, my mother took me to the Norman Rockwell Museum.

Standing in front of Freedom from Want, I listened

as the docent explained how Rockwell created the illusion of water

in the glasses. All that white and glass and water- the painting really

is a remarkable achievement; even I, a child, could see

that. But what most interested me about the work

was the guy in the lower right corner who looks like

*

the creepy uncle. Even now he unnerves me. Staring directly at us, wanting to know

if we’re in on the joke, asking, “You know that ain’t no water, right?

That’s paint. Here, have a sip.” But he’s saying it with his eyes

because Grandma taught him better than to use the word ain’t

and she sure as hell doesn’t know he drinks anything stronger than

tea. He must need a drink, sitting at that pure, pristine table, amongst all those nice,

clean, well-behaved people. What are they talking about?

Sports? Stocks? School? Grandma’s dinner? That turkey,

*

it does look delicious, but I bet it’s dry. Good thing those nice folks have something

to drink. My family is a lot like theirs, although we also imbibe in vodka and wine,

and when we  give thanks it is in the haze of the candlelit dusk where we sit at a table laid

with Waterford and Lenox, inebriated by our own lies, so many that, we can no longer discern the glasses from the water.

The chipmunk is flat.

It would peel off the pavement with little resistance

if not for the blood and entrails that hold it to the surface

like of a piece of glue soaked construction paper

stuck to a child’s school desk.

*

If one removes it with one’s hands, parts will come up

with ease. Some will need to be scraped — bits of ear, kidney,

fur to later be found in nail beds. The rest will remain

on the street until someone comes and shovels the remnants

of the small, once delicate body and throws it

away with the rest of the carnage

collected during the week.

*

What fate! Crushed by a behemoth —

a dramatic end for an inconsequential creature.

Now, only a flat, damp, skin sheet.

No trace of beauty.

No trace of itself other than the color

and the tell-tale black and white stripes.

*

Leave it be.

Perhaps the crows will find the corpse.

They will pick at its flesh

and fill their bellies, offering it purpose,

and so, dignity.