Lynn Strongin
This Glass Box


February
encodes a heart of ruby fire.

By serendipity
I run
into my mirror other: but she won't be stroked, has eyes green to amber.

Chance & misfortune
have thrown us
together.

This sky's pink is skinned bone.
The dog's bark rusts
his hinged jaw.

      In the Nickel Belt of Canada
      people
      are putting chains on their cars. Arctic outflow warnings.

During the war we learned to move
fast
single-file, white socks on, heads bowed, checked for lice

(the medieval head dreaming of angels
was infected with lice.)
We did as told: kept moving in one direction till we got there, whipcord-thin:

by luck
when I caught polio
I was acrobatic, a letter from the Cyrillic alphabet, that lean.

There was no
walking away from
no turning back.

Silver tarnishes to antique black:     I write, but never as hack, what grabs me, I grab it:
and the wind
gives everything a doomsday, emergency feeling:
    cellophane shrinks on the windows, ice is shattering.
    The compass draws its long silver arms in.