Instead of Sheep

In her daydream it's eternal winter,

twilight, snowing or about to snow.

Foot cracks twig, nut, ice, rib,

oak hands jazz the windy overhead,

creatures ignite the bone-dry underbrush, 

and sleep, like a bored P.I., shadows her.

Night's net's poised to tumble from the rafters,

            sleight-of-lantern, windfall, snowrise -- everything

harder and harder. Footsteps quicken, hers , theirs , ours,

and just as the iron maiden starts to spring

there, at the end of the path,

is the house, the hut, hovel, midden, squat,

            hell, it shapeshifts from night to night.

But, no matter what, the key --

at least so far -- fits the lock (when there is a lock)

and the door opens (when there is a door) --

flies open under her weight and the weight of the wind,

            or whinges, too-long ankylosed in an oilless world,

and she, the dreamer, upright, navigates black

space. The house haunts her, bowel to crown,

as she haunts its stairless wells and lidless flues,

very eye in very eye,  breath to the four winds

            (or is it windows ?) until eddying

inked scraps, dander, dust, those motes of her

are housekept, wept or swept into the night.

2/8/2014