Intermission

It’s late. It isn’t yesterday anymore. The hour has moved beyond that part of the sundial. Up in the woods, soon the witch hazel will leaf a low green flame. Yesterday we picked our way through hellebore, through foxglove, through belladonna. Above, the heads of snowball viburnum drooped low like lanterns. I turned a question I cannot voice, over and over in my head. No one will hear its soft bumping in the corners, no one but me see the flare of orange tracks in the velvet dark. If I said it aloud, all this softness would fade in an instant. The lambs’ ears would shrink and recoil, the creeping flox and the tiny fingers of salt cedar form crystals like ice. See the roses massed on the trellis, the rows of spiked thorns on guard at their feet.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.