Snow plows beeping
Reverse whine and scrape
Swirling blizzard of waking—Strange
in this place where
boredom banks both snow and cold
Are my eyes running?
After all
there's a stiff wind, and it’s 18 below....

Pictures and phone calls make up my family
Stray cats eat suet I leave for the birds
who make names for themselves in sunlit bushes
Love these more than...

my hearse of a job

where that ice cream vat—slipped
smashed
my sodden dish-doin’

fingers    against     sink

Pain mounts its insurrection!
Ambushed!
from every direction
Fainting in steam
Squeezing my eyes    
till the blood shuts my brain-failing
Down my wrist
all over
the front of this rubber apron....

Someone hates me somewhere

Someone found me more tenacious
than a road-**** skunk!

I eat    I drink    I work    I sleep
between these vicious icicles  


-18F = -28 C