Susan Kelly-DeWitt

It was November outside—
the leaf-colored sofa inside
strangely vivid in the flickering

light,

as if someone had died
and lounged with new-found
brightness on the depressed
cushions.

Your heart
in its pink handkerchief
was hidden.

So I looked
down at your shoes
for some signal,

as if, in the moonlight,
they might be two rare
flowers blooming along
my way—but no,

they were only shoes,
unlacing themselves,
two tight wingtips
of shadow.

1.

The rain is pouring down
the streetlights are lit
     
          the fishbone trees
wishbone branches
     are bowing and shivering

(snowing inside, ponds icing over
—waiting

     for the first incautious
                    footstep)          

Yesterday
I was sixty-eight


2.

The few leaves left
     on the poplars look
          like they are chatting
over a back yard
cloud-fence

          —or plotting
their unlikely escape

The street-
light bulbs have become bright
          eggs in a frosted glass
cage
          

3.

More pummel
and splash           gutter music
     downspout fugue

I am a marshland          
               a swamp
(I have lived many years
in a floodplain)


4.

High winds tonight          great

          wild gusts