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Nor Triumph Nor Resounding Tragedy

She did not want to think
of him. But it was Feburary.
And truth be told, he would’ve
wanted her to be about this sad.

The old tree looked as if this
time would be the time that it
would finally give in, bent as it
was so parallel to the very ground

from which it had with such fragility
sprung those several dozen years 

ago. Do not stare at the darkness, 

into its cursed, unholy face, was what

each lingering leaf held on to tell
the world around it, each that still
held on for dear life as the wind
worked endlessly at separation

and inevitable splintering of every
thing that got into its way, with its
corrupt torrential breath, which
was a screaming movement that,

as always, made its way right
up and to the cabin door, which,
for hours of that foul night would
lick and bite at it with such a

harried fuss that the door would all 

but certainly give in to all the fiend

ish howl of wound-inflicting wind, to
leave a gaping hole from which the

home could then breathily consume
all those who dreamt that they
were safe, tucked tightly into
beds; surely by morning they’d

each and all be dead, having given
hours hence their last thanks with
out even a chanced farewell. But
just before they arose, the storm had

made its way into the next property,
in hopes of catching it a little easier
to overwhelm and then destroy. So
there she was again, her butt beside

the creekbed so each of her toes 

would feel the ripple and swirl of
the fast-risen whoosh of water that
was somehow held as it moved wetly

west, all those horrid thoughts were
swimming frenetically about inside
her head that she had nearly found
her dreams again before she felt a

little tug and she, a bit startled,
looked up and out to see the red-
snubbed cork go helzapoppin’ for

a moment and then slip distinctly

down and out of sight such that
her bamboo cane unstraightened
into such an arc that she was all
but certain that it was about to

snap in two. But tragedy lost out 

to triumph once again, just like it
apparently had last night. Soon,
just before the whiskered cat that

had been filleted and sliced just 

so went a-sizzle on the grill it 

would be hung upon the scales 

kept in her father’s barn. As things

turned out she’d been hung the
same way, and to the ounce, one
miraculous morning long hence, yet 

as godforsaken as today, when all

the remnants of torture had laid
the land bare. That was the night
she lost her mother. She brought
the cool raw fingers of the fish out

to her dad and watched him crack
a bit of a grin as he lay each one
down upon the grill on this fog
ridden morning full of the promise

of upcoming torment and disarray.
They fed without much thinking,
this but mostly contented family.
It was to be another damp and

intermittently gleaming day.
A time for work and the dis
pensation of unpleasant think
ing. And that is what she did.