JANetc

i do remember the rabbit blood on the snow 

and I imagine where the hawk could have gone 

and this all takes place in January in my mind. 

Why wasn't I there. It feels like I was. Should I say this out loud,*

It's all taken place in January a slow livid drag

across the snow You're beautiful but ur gonna fade away

but not in January. I've never left. 

I'm still there pretending to be in those heart beaten days

Painting walls white in my wool socks praying for a beginning

this place is a work in progress the office floor just needs to be stripped. 

How can I be this. More. 

The shrine covered in snow me dragging my feet spilt minestrone soup

that keeps my hands warm.

I notice and try explaining the foot prints that I walk in hoping to feel them. 

I'm still there in the attic and on the back porch smoking a cigarette jumping 

to conclusions and hoping this is the time that the planet dies 

wondering if there is asbestos in the shellac of the floor I stop scraping. 

* "Maybe this is one time it will always be that second to third week of January." 

The first winter that cost a lot of money and the diesel was too

much for the collective bank account and retirement fund dissolution projections, 

or so I've imagined.