"A woman is sitting alone in a house. She knows she is alone in the whole world: every other living thing is dead. The doorbell rings." ...Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1835-1907

the squirrel displaced by blackness winged all plump and strutting flew directly towards me unafraid but more concerned am thinking with the doe revolving slowly slowly from the other tree so close to the watcher, yes? no sunshine in those eyes for sure that yesterday had no vision of the death so soon to come oh no

that hunter now all stuffed with turkey on this day of thanksgiving in a country ripped and torn from those who failed to see the future coming when they stretched their arms in welcome but no...no talk of that but of the raven and his friend the red who now sit beneath the deer as if in waiting but for what they know I have seen have turned to me each as if to discount my presence four deer have hung from there all does these were and each time the squirrel and raven attend as if their presence might undo the bullet and the death...

darkness now and cold comes to the gray land as the dead one swings in her silent dance tended by these two the red and the black and whos to say what...what, a pecking now at my window...yes, the black one nods so slowly questing questing me in to the night...