The house is full
Of sleeping people.The rooms breathe.
The coffee brews.
The day perches with possibility
Of birds.
The ducks back home
Duckwalk through the snow
To be fed by the lady in red.
Here the birds have plenty
To eat
Or are food for the alligators.
Theoretically they live out back.
I have never seen them there.
The house is filled
With people that sleep.
It breathes.
I hear new rhythms.
Here there is no cat to rest full and warm,
Anchored breath in my lap.
Here there is one comfortable place
To sit,
A leather chair with my feet perched
On the corner of the bed.
There is breath of sleeping, turning people.
The day perches.
Back home there is winter thunder.
Here there is no winter.
Here there is no cat.
Here there is breath and the potentiality
Of alligators.
Catharine Phillips
December 31, 2010
