No hiss
There hung a single icicle
puncturing the pregnant moon, sinking
I came to pray to the night,
give my winter confession,
whisper visible breath
in hopes the silence would steal it
and I knew it would
because the moon, she made it far enough
to escape the chill that would expose
her leaking air;
the sound already stolen away
The round world will never know tonight, we deflated, you and I.

Cryogenic Martyr
Winter is a denial;
playground earth is shut down and inaccessible.
I hide inside the walls and deeper, yet;
shut down and inaccessible.
No reaping chill will find me.
Merely 2 months ago,
I bent my body beneath the limbo bar
And now,
there is no space left
only arrested, stiff defeat
There is a sole rescuer
to swaddle me in Gortex and down
and eskimo kiss my popsicle nose
who reveals swingsets, trails
and margarita cold sunsets
I am the cryogenic martyr,
the suspended neanderthal of an ice age
waiting to hear chisel or drip
My own thoughts reverberating
in a molecularly small space
Such aches from stifled nights and days!
I say if such an attack
causes us to dart from shelter to shelter
that I will not be a hero today
but I will be your recon mission

I am a paler blue than you are used to

Sparkling Season
Christmastime is so full of sparkles, glitter, twinkling… Why?
All these pretty things that catch our eye;
dangling orbs and flickering lights,
and moonlit snow we ne’er get to see,
it is all part of the holiday revelry.
Shiny papered boxes, big bowed, stacked to build eagerness,
trees adorned with flashy dress,
sparks that fly under a mistletoe’s kiss;
we gather to sing shimmering songs of soul-tingling faithfulness.
All around, sensations blink us into joy;
glistening sugar cookies and battery powered toys.
We give much less than we can all take in,
in this dazzling, hurried, incandescent season.

Boarding up my windows
To prepare myself for winter
I am boarding up my windows,
filling my pantry,
compacting my bones
so moisture cannot
penetrate the joints.
The world will forget me more
but I am resolved to
avert the chill
with hunkered down loneliness,
oceans of tea,
fleece swathed solidarity.
Removed from frigidity
I am stone
alone
with my CB radio and scanner
leaning close
listening for chatter
flares and afghans at hand
in case the roof caves
If you find me in the thaw
Put a can opener to my lips
To hear the hiss and murmur
Of secrets lonely women hold
In their ever sliding glacial hearts
There are storms no one can endure
And measures that are never enough
To save a home without love.

Fair-weather Friend

Drawn in
It’s best you breathe the night air slow;
your lungs will crystallize
if you pant
Rest the tip of your tongue
before it solidifies
into a leaping porpoise statue
Give the night its time
and the muses their silence
they scribe in frost
and show us the way
back to the hearth.

Seasonally Affected
The doors are closing.
A slit of light remains;
mere moments until
it rains.
Then,
I will hear the loud clap
of locks
me, shocked in stocks
imprisoned
picking at my own skin
for ink
hatching marks
scratching in the dark
mumbling refrains.
Blood fills the tank
Flood in the dank
chambers
drowning in my own
gurgled breath.
Only the rope
with the noose
holds the truth
if I want to escape
me.
The first robins’ egg
will dry it up,
no giving up
when the sun
shines once more.
The door will swing wide,
I’ll step outside,
squinting, weak
and likely unfit for release.

Unaffected Fool
The feminine winter
it’s skin, tissue paper
legs unshaven
The masculine winter,
with his even stride
believes he can reconstitute her

Let the ol’ Bastard be lost
The tracks in the snow
are so obviously
those of a old man drunk on scotch
I can see the trail,
a staggered meter
of one-two, one nununun-two,
his decrepit left hip
hoisting the burden
onto the right
and a rift between he
and an old friend
sent him into the sleet and wind
Now we’re tracking him.

Mellowfluous
On days like these
ink creeps down the confessing page
rain slides down the windows
and blood weeps slow through my polar veins
the coffee perks and drips in sync
and someday soon
all these liquids will efface
amalgamize in a swirl in the palm of my hand
and I will smear them down my sullen face

Lovers in a Hot Pocket

That frozen lump in my breast

A dash of pepper
