Suddenly, it’s cold. It’s waking, but I don’t run. I bought a hat with feathers that came from no bird. I am working—-though my novel is not at all done—-I am working, as happened after the first, on a poem. An aftermath poem. An after fiction and other stuff poem. A poem about malice. I don’t know about malice. But my poem does or thinks it does. I let the poem do the talking. It talks a lot, that poem, a lot about moons and steel and scissors. In my real life, I am quiet. I buy Christmas gifts for six. Hurrying to a door today, a bird, a starling, buzzed by, so close my long hair lifted. Then, in front of me on its low path, it dipped and fell, dipped and fell, and rose.
