cutting great neck

you thought
there'd always be snow.

you'd always be
lonely,
and thinking.

you'd always
stay awake at night
listening
to the cicada scream.

you'd always write
when the house
was silent,
when the world still
filled with black smog,
silent.


you'd always be writing.
in that house, that
wooden house. "colonial"
they call it.
as if
we all need to remember
that they used to live in houses,
just like us.



there'd always be a coldness
when you "tiptoed" down the
stairs. in the cavity
of the living room

you felt the fireplace
blink. it permeated the air
and made you shiver. the floor
whispered cool prayers to your feet.

your music skirred
from your room,
a susurration of
night, of tonight,
of the long, yellow-highlighter
moon of memory.

outside the snow
shone against the bricks
like skin in a dark room.

and still you thought
it would never melt.