It’s November. Prepare for all the ways to fall down —
in darkness, on ice. It’s November like a box of clouds
in darkness, on ice. It’s November like a box of clouds
with a slowly closing lid. Clouds in your lungs
cough, clouds over your eyes. The warm cloud
of your bed muting the outline of things as if
all light wavers like a candle’s — brief intermittent
puffs. It’s November. I’m trying to think of one good
thing. The birds this morning like a foreshortened
arrow, a wedge with a few knots knocked out. A sign
of cohesion not direction, to draw together and be
drawn. Sharing each other’s gravity although the crows,
I’m sure, will be up to their hijinks, screaming in trees,
waiting for you to walk by with a new earring.
