Thoughts of a Dying Woman

it’s a cargo train

or the night wind howling over the Hudson

it might be a dog

she and her father visited a goat farm

once the lady in white is a nurse

a goat hopped up and ate the roses on her dress

a bird in the window twitches, pecks and sits

the feeder is empty

behind the bird

in the abandoned branches of an oak another black bird descends

there was a woman in her attic once more than once

she glowed white in the window frame

or was the light hers her gossamer hair

that iridescent blue silk sarong

draped over the black oak chest

on which she sat

this attic one minute filled with pearls and gold

in velvet lined mahogany then gone

like the wind in her window now

it’s snowing something is moving under the pear tree

it’s snowing now outside halos in headlights

on streetlights on porches

undisturbed by the gathering spirits of snow

Selected Writings: