My lips taste like salt on a cloudy
day in mid-November.
Snow sugars the fake slats
of the fake alpine cottage
across the highway,
a diner or an outlet,
I've never known.
It's a good omen when
it snows in mid-November.
A righting of a balance upturned
by summer migraines and heat stress.
I'm warm today and that's all
that matters. I can feed my family
today and that's all that matters.
I'm a ghost here, an indifferent
spectator of decay. I've stopped
caring. I'm okay today and
that's all that matters.
Silent.
My feet bled white by the unyielding
counter pressure of concrete.
One more day,
I've got one more day
to meet his unflinching gaze,
to listen to his interior retort,
to smile at his outrageous claims,
to laugh at his dark wit,
to play along if I have the wisdom.
Or melt into the floor beneath
the burden of his misery.
Either way, the one will follow
on the heels of the other and
I'll find myself looking through
a one-way mirror wondering
how I ever did without.
I never will.
I've earned my ring in reverse,
as we all do, and there is no world
without him, not for me.
I look out through two panes of glass
at the mid-November snow.
I'm an island. Isolated. Drowning
in an ocean of strangers. There
is no sun, only a uniformity of gray.
My heart is free to return, and for
the moment my thoughts.
Tonight my body will follow.
And like the feather in the dove's tail
it'll all make sense again and I'll
fold this away for another day
and remember who I am.
November 13, 2025
