When a cold front arrives,
it’s conspicuous.
Whole trees sway.
Leaves and chimes are moved to music.
Cats and coyotes cry
at dawn. They sound
like children in peril.
Or demons.
I am a prisoner watching
from morning’s window.
Listening to the cries
of the lost and hungry.
Slipping out of blankets,
I am grounded
on a floor of ice.
Foggy but steady,
I step in slow motion
toward my daily routine—
silent and desensitized,
in striped fuzzy socks.
Sophie’s Shelves 