Against the Fall of Night

One more Friday the thirteenth sans mishap.
We stayed alert for the slightest cracked egg,
wary to edicts of luck gone awry,
careful to maintain our relevant guard.

This we did with aplomb until midnight.
Then we eased, having given superstition
validity for twenty four hours,
with no reason to feel poverty-stricken.

Yet such homespun relaxation and wealth
soon relented to a hideous wind,
an A.M. intruder ousting the calm
of late autumn like a wicked bandit.

Otherwise casual lumbar spines arched.
Hiatus of ligament and muscle
ended with rude custody, as alarm
wrapped iron chains around both he and she.

(We had not given the front yard oak tree
    too much notice of late, for it is strength,
    a bulwark of might, a static tower.
    There were, of course, the day-to-day concerns.)

It would have served us well to look on high
now and then, for if we had, we would have
noticed, perhaps, the weak limb, a bending
uncommon, that sag as a danger sign.

Therefore as the wind howled and buffeted,
there came a crack like that of a gunshot,
and physiques already tensed like strained rope
puckered as muscle and skeleton bonded.

That sound was the breaking--then came a crash,
a detonation, a rearrangement
of glass into random and abrupt shards,
a living room incursion like a war.

It was as if bones had to induct skin,
as if a century of shock bestirred
in half a tick’s time, when a limb entered
uninvited into our humble home.

The wind stormed in as if to claim conquest.
Shivering and drained, we wobbled like stick-
figures into the kitchen, picking glass
bits from our arms as we labored to breathe.


40 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
December 14, 2013