Polar Vortex, 2014

To dust and ashes, the late season's gusts,

whipping about the house as if feverishly

seeking out some mystery tucked beneath its beams,

whistling through the upstairs halls

to stitch a veil of chill along the posts and the staircase. 

This end-of-day blue at the curtain of our southern sky

is stretched taut like old paper over the night swelling beneath,

bleeding like a bruise capsizes worried bones,
a stain of wine pooling on a littered tablecloth.

These are the half-awake days,
grasping for purpose and reasoning
in fogged alleys between the mills
and down the shattered cobblestones,

a bourgeoning of something pale and shadowed

and gathering like magpies on the traffic lights.