My wife’s stirring the worms in the basement.
I’m upstairs boiling water for the hydroculator:
The dead fox my son brought in last fall from the road
still lies beneath the snow on top of the shed
that I fell off of last week, injuring my back.
I call the old boy Polyneices one day and Eteocles the next.
I’m tempting fate, I know, but what’s worse, getting hit
by a truck crossing the street on your way to church
or living each day gripping a brooch?

Each day I climb up to see what the air has wrought.
Still whole in the cold, perfectly preserved.
I leave him be as along as he smiles,
as long as his lips still cling to his bones.

The red wrigglers roil in the green wormorioum.
The tea pot whistles its single note.
I stand transfixed at the kitchen sink
staring out the window at the snowy field.
A crow flies by like a pair of scissors, cutting
the world into everything and nothing.
A fox appears at the edge of the yard, then runs away.
I smile slowly to keep the sky from cracking.