Pulling the curtains,
everything is deep in white,
bare trees and cars
in their Buddhahood.
Starlings raid
the bowl of cat food on the porch,
and sometimes turkey vultures.
It’s a mess like abstract
contemporary doodles,

all that’s left. The past
is happy to just survive,
but please pay it.

Nobody’s going anywhere.
We’ll be shadows all day
in houses that won’t open,
except to look and shake our heads
at the unplowed streets.
Time goes backwards
when this happens.
Slip the vinyl out
and hear the dust in music
wanting to talk
too. It has something
it wants to say to you

about the stillest day

deep in you. Look at abstract expressionist

paintings on the t.v. You like the way
they look like something starving

scoured those rectangles of earth.

Today is a day to feel the sacredness

of whatever food there is.