a new morning huddled
over the small stove set on snow
cold-numbed fingers
fumbled with matches
to light it

coughs punched at a dust rag sky,
the dull rasps
embarrassed near neighbors might hear
how the weak
body heaves, wracks
they'd smell kerosene on hands and clothes
if they came too close

the bent over figure
counts ashes afloat, relics
of fresh disasters wrought high,
loosing tally at one in hope it was the last;
restarts the reckoning -
it might be a tempest this time

fire fed by collections of poems,
old histories of things with no purpose,
expired quickly in overnight darkness
cold, gray their corpses still lay
beyond brushed bricks of the hearth

even a grocery list,
its page neatly erased under flakes,
chases after vapors escaped an empty fuel can,
hunger replaced by craving to be warm again

inside, behind the door
they bow heads and say grace at the table
praying over slices of light from a window
intoning with cotton puff voices
still
God gives tomorrow to continue the counting