Everything Here Looks Very Dismal
       

But if there were rabbits, clustered beneath the chestnut trees, uncanny in twilight. If there were ancient wooden houses, and kitchen gardens stretching toward the tracks, with knobby cabbages or trellises of beans that cast long shadows as the train clattered by. If women moved slowly back and forth, scattering feed from battered pails, if chickens flustered up clucking, pecking, with their curious hitch gait. If men came from the barns in muddy boots, bulky sweaters tucked into their overalls, and scraped their boots, entered their kitchens, shut their blue doors.

If night came down as we gazed out the window, if fields folded themselves like cloaks and sank into sleep. If we sank into sleep. And if we rode on the train as summer passed, then autumn, as it carried us into the mountains, till we came to a river so cold it burned. If we crossed it asleep on stepping stones, flapping our gawky wings.

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Copyright © 2019 Ann Fisher-Wirth All rights reserved
from The Bones of Winter Birds
Terrapin Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission