Winter Commute

Winter always feels like
a bruise to me,
December heart
draining the red blue
purple and gray
shocking in
consistency

i close one eye
view a skyline, pocked
with abandoned
squirrel nests

in the other eye,
floaters swirl and
abound, from all the
liquor

on my commute – an
old person’s house. A
couple. once. He died,
she shortly after –
so many of these –
they begin to
crumble… no humans
for upkeep
so often also in
marriage

old Vermont shacks
farmhouses –
blood of propane and
paint thinner seeping –
with lies and stillness –

no
words after
miscarriage –

like a sty warmed to the
compress – like a blood
blister with the hot
needle to it – or
my own thighs – they
look like dead
potatoes…

my son says. What
are those
bruises, momma

in my head – I repeat
like a mantra…