“There is a menace in the air
Of tragedies in the making”
	Charles Simic

You feel it sure as autumn, 
the way jays dive and screech 
around the river birch.

Your mother calls and calls, 
but her voice is lost in the wind.
Your father has limped home late.

His briefcase has torn, his shirt 
hangs in rags. Could it be dogs 
again, or the human gang?

Some accident on the subway, 
or a tumble in brambles 
near the high school field?

Across the yard a fox limps 
into weeds. Is it rabid, 
your brother wants to know, 

have you seen this one before?
In the living room, the TV blares, 
another murder, another storm.

Your sister hides in the attic.
She has broken the necks 
on all her dolls.

There will be much to discuss.
Early this morning deer came down 
to drink at the pond.

The air felt cold, not quite winter, 
and they seemed to shiver, 
or shimmer, just before they disappeared.
                        

Lately I’ve become fascinated with physical decay, 
how mold grows on the sleeping bags, how the stairs 
buckle a little over time. I’ve watched with interest 
as the days dwindle toward the darkest hours, 
looked out at the waning moon as the dark pond 
begins to freeze. All night I hear boots 
stomping in the yard, but when I drag myself 
from the warm sheets, nothing is there, 
only the streetlight and the shadows of trees.
I’m forbidden to watch the news, so I read 
physics and a novel about the end of the world.
It’s a mega storm, and it comes while people are having 
a drink by the side of the pool.
Meanwhile, quantum mechanics shows that each particle 
takes every possible path through a slit screen.
If I were an electron, I could travel at the speed of light, 
which would mean that no time would pass from my point of view 
and I would stay forever young.
But now I have a headache and my Facebook friends 
are weeping. Those boots again, and now a rustling in the trees.
I may be falling, surrendered to gravity’s effects, which makes me 
weightless for now as I hurtle toward the earth in the early evening rain.