Middle Winter [3]

3.
These hours: a slender volume of collected
Nightmares. Each one forgets the one before,

fades into the wall like a stain
the new renters of these cells will see

as matter remakes itself into morning,
and me. The sun fattens on the vine of sky.

I bend beneath the burden of the moon
on my back, unseen by all but my dog

and you, coaxing a painting from the piano
or a song from canvas. I heard Neptune tonight

has scampered behind Venus.My dog scratches
a dark rib and adjusts his possum mask.

The limit of God’s patience tightens around his neck
but he won’t whimper. He knows I’ll wake

in time to cut the cord with the almighty
and hear my animal spirit sprint away.

Middle Winter [2]

The brown regret of January grass:
A surface gesture only, as if it wants

to be covered by snow but who knows
what word it mouths when under the white smother.

Mild late afternoon, with the moon sailing
across the the clear day, almost invisible, like

a discarded present thrown by the cut tree’s
memory back into the house

as it was dragged trunk first through
the front door, a small wrapped thing landing softly

against a wall in the foyer, no name
tag: so the moon lands against the

bare trees, seen by almost no one.
Only when one looks unfocused

to the woods one feels like a crumpled
gift has been placed in the hand.

The sun meanwhile corrugates a cloud
over the tree-line, travels like a tourist

out of season to the nearby roofs,
To the backyard behind the shed

where the brown grass complains
Each time the skeletal hulk loses another

needle, twisting in the air as it accelerates
Like a knife thrown to kill the past.

Middle Winter [1]

1.

Winter’s first third is a heel.
Crushing colorful leaves.

Surrendering the body
As it slides on black ice.

The holiday is undressed
In the shallow afternoon and dragged

Curbside but its shadow remains
On the wall in the shape of everyone

Who didn’t make it this year.
From the crib of a new moon a rat climbs,

Open-mouthed, teeth full of cheese.
Just above the surface of the earth

An entire house tries to escape
But it has to freeze in a passing

Car’s headlights, then forgets how to walk.
Days into the second third of winter

The moon is a hairless tail.