No Anchor For Rancour

Icicles hung from the roof like translucent fingers Clawing towards the ground While behind the eaves, She brushed her plain brown hair Tired gray eyes in the mirror, Discolored around the fringe And gravity pulled at the frown Like it did everything else She was one of many, A soul, a body With all the glitter rubbed away Winter breathed out its discontent A heaving sigh that scattered leaves Over mailboxes, churches, graveyards You can lose yourself in those fields out there Mired in snow, as countless as crows As tin men, as a brick in the wall And when three young girls, All smiles and apple cheeks and roses Walked by her window, she cast those grey eyes down From above— her jaw nutcracker clenched New England January froze her eyes A hand clenched and unclenched at their sparkly laughter The brush rattled to the floor As the girls disappeared from her line of sight She was already a thousand miles away Up into the cirrus clouds, Each inch colder than the last