Where do you go, now,

when the wind dies down:

 

when the humdrum rubble

of the soon-to-be-built house

across the road

   is stocked with two-by-fours

   and loses its cavernous rot:

 

when, speaking of no one,

you return to yourself

and open your mouth,

filling the kitchen with bees:

 

when the walls bleed

and the snow smells of

tongue caked in tobacco

and you are, once again, cradling the baby mouse

your sister squeezed to death.

 

Outside, next to where the fire was,

wet hay all around the yard.

 

The air, smelling of chicory, Decembered

by the frost around it.

 

The sky: gray as lake,

eye open upon death.

 

You close its lid

as if you knew

what it saw.

 

Photo By: madichan