In a sudden thaw
the ice cracks and falls
like glass slipping
from a careless hand.
Suddenly,
a crow flaps down
like a black rag
and nothing is right.

This morning makes 
false promises
soon to be withdrawn.
The brittle surfaces
of winter break
like river ice,
opening the door to floods
we won’t escape.
The world grows dark
and the bright center
gets smaller and smaller.
The air is too heavy to breathe.

Something is coming
and it doesn’t feel 
like freedom.
                        

No bony ghost
you came back
in all your soft and shining flesh
full of jokes and sly tricks
turning disaster into celebration.
Just like before
though now we know
all about men
who won’t wait until
you’re six months gone
before bringing another woman
into your kitchen
where she stirs her own soups
and ignores your children

What times we had!
around your table
talking the moon into morning
laughing until we were limp and empty
beyond convention.
No one could break
the circle we made.
Only death divides us
and still I reach out in my dreams
for you and your living
conversation.
                        

What you need
they said
is a good hard knock
upside the head
a clean break
it will leave you
with a lot less
to complain about

Afterward I kept still
as a white mouse
on a live wire grid
embarrassed
by rooms where every
thing waited
blank and innocent
knocked clean of meaning

And they were right
with so little left
there was not much
to complain of

I kept close
in the naked rooms
folding what rags
of memory I had
into smaller and smaller
packages

hoping if I hid them
well enough
I could keep them
after the white light
burned out everything
behind my eyelids 
and they would be
the only colors left 
in a world flat as a negative
where I had no complaints