Padding the Room

The grid finally blinked and went black,

killing the refrigerator’s low, electric prayer.

Without the hum of the furnace in the wall,

the night is a different kind of air.

I stand on the porch in a moth-eaten coat,

watching the white accumulate on the white.

It’s the sound of a bandage being wrapped

around the broken ribs of the night.

A heavy clump slides from the cedar limb,

a muffled 'pfft' as it hits the drift below.

It’s a world being buried in velvet and ash,

where there’s nowhere left for a body to go.