Happy Companion in the Night

Working at the library has its perks, like bringing home Bob Dylan on vinyl. You add rum to take away the ache but somehow the black liquid simply drowns your heart from the inside out.

Drunk in the music, it is obvious that volume is a lousy indicator of impending violence. Middle Income America forgets this and uses their educated, softer tones to project wisdom or even worse, the idea that the poverty households are somehow not wise enough because of the need to be heard over the noise.

I am well versed in the study of proxemics and haptics. Please come sit a little closer.

Winter now appears and recedes like ocean tides. Snow laps up toward the front door in the morning but by noon, constricts into last fall's leaf litter. Elongated light stirs the drumming in my bones. Sleep settles less and less. Last week's moonlight fell upon my naked thigh in bed – a happy companion in the night. Tell me, beloved, are there any more dreams left?

We play cards and drink with our daughter at the dining room table until 3 a.m. She cries a lot when she is drinking, I guess. There is no way to know the totality of a person, even if you conceived, birthed and lived with them. So when I miss the rivers of Vermont, am I missing something that doesn’t exist any longer?

Red Winged Blackbirds and seeds in my pocket. I watch the breath rising from my dog's mouth in below freezing temperatures. She no longer likes to be inside the house and it wounds me a little bit. One day I will find her with no more breath, curled up in death, just the same as life.