Hard Water

The pilot light died sometime near three,

leaving the radiators to click and go hollow.

I walked to the porch to see what I could see,

watching the breath I wasn't sure I could swallow.

A sparrow was there, gripped to the iron rail,

a small, gray fist that the wind had turned to stone.

It didn't look like a tragedy, or a failure of the frail,

just a piece of the world that decided to be alone.

Inside, the glass is blooming with a silver rot,

frost patterns spreading like lungs across the pane.

Detailed and delicate, the oxygen we forgot,

the branching of a life that won't feel the rain.

I’m wearing my coat in the kitchen, staring at the stove.

The thermometer says it’s dropping past ten.

You can’t negotiate with the cold or the things it wove.

You just wait for the ice to turn back into water again.