The doctor`s an hour behind schedule.
Does this cause midnight to come
sooner, or later?
A nurse calls numbers, and people disappear
behind the door – are they entering
a new year, or locked into the old?
Rain smudges the window.
Beyond our dark, I imagine
stars shifting patterns
for a swing from one number
to the next, loose
in thin air between the years.
FENCE
A squared-off sky,
blue directly
overhead. My sky.
My pines divided
from my neighbor`s.
I haven`t seen a bird
since August, but
they still must fly.
Somewhere else.
Not here.
BY RIGHTS
All day we`ve been searching
surveyor`s plats and grant deeds
to find who owns this land.
By night the great cat slips
the south-line fence, past signs
that post No Trespass No Hunting,
to roam here as great cats do
on land nobody ever truly owns.
MIDWINTER SIGN
What does it mean when the moon
divides, each half honed to crescent
spikes, the two halves hinged
together at the points to form
a pair of horseshoes, one belly-down
to hold good fortune, the other
arched, a draining cup?
A revelation, surely, Janus moon
in a black sky, ready to fill
or empty with a night-watcher`s
hopes or fear.
Taylor Graham writes:
The Muse is hard at work bringing in firewood and trying to stay warm.
 The Year of the Cat: New Poems |
