Ice scabs the black roads, the hills impassable
old houses overlook the Bottoms
become pedestaled offerings to the wind
stomping down power lines so they fall
arcing and hissing into slush.
Porches bared like teeth, white with frost
Vacated glider-swings slumber in tool sheds
amid folded lawn chairs and stone-empty flower pots.
Today, no commuters tread the sidewalks
intent on bus stops, nor do we.
Inside the house,
in the middle of the block, brass oil lamps’ Satan-red glass
haunt the piano back, though no one in the family plays.
After grandpa died we found rats nesting in the hammers.
Old woman lights with a bit of newspaper
the gas stove in a close kitchen
melts down lard to fry supper.
The furnace a mammoth dominating middle-room
of the shotgun layout by the bed
Orange-blue glow ugly but familiar demon-face
flaked pig iron where in the morning
we will heat our clothes up on its hot top
to take the sting out of having to rise
from the nest of blankets and bodies
into the chill dawn.
The old woman lights off the stove burner a cigarette
and sits frozen despite the writhing heat
while around her the children strip off their sweaters
and surreptitiously crack windows, breaking off icicles to lick
a crumbling statue contemplating innumerable wrongs
until the forgotten ash flakes onto dressing gown flannel.
A smaller heater in the dark bathroom lower blue witches’ glow
A tiny string of white-orange seed beads opalescent base
beside which we scrub off shivering in the tub, the old soap gray
after knowing so many bodies.
Before bed, we will light candles and put on socks,
so many saints, saintly robes crowns tears exposed hearts
all in gothic leaded stained glass colors of flame and shame
as we drift off listening to our grandmother’s voice
whispering nursery rhymes stories psalms
They merge in our heads and we go into the world aware.
You can burst into song or burst into flame
but if ever you see our lights go out
know that all is safe and still
and we’ll be whistled clean
so long as we have flesh and tallow,
ash, smoke, candles,
soap.