Now my chairs get snowed over at the fire pit, but it all looks perfect anyway, perfectly
welcoming for a set of elves or, there, that raven eating the combusted squirrel. Please
stop in for a visit. Now the gray sky darkens, and my cat sits in the bathtub licking a
faucet. I have a blue desk chair and a twin bed. Aloe vera. Orchids. I own felted birds and
a set of bells to issue welcome. Tell me I don’t and I won’t listen; I am taking a call. Then
I return to reading one of many important books while sipping scotch and smoking
cigarettes. I keep the remains of my wedding cake frozen. Also capsules containing bits
of premium placenta. The sky that grayed all day continues to darken and it is perfect to
watch this from the couch draped with bold but tasteful fabric as the tastefully industrial
buildings blue a little, sending up their smoke. The low red and gray brick buildings sit
like hills and the house next door is too yellow with, thankfully, an unspeakably garish
door. Otherwise there would be something unsettling in my great fortune. I could be
seconds from death by fire. As it is, I’m warm. I’ve lined the fireplace with votive
candles and the furnace kicks to remind me that it cares, a silver caving. I rarely thwack
the mantle anymore. Hello, my Virginia Woolf. Hello, my dummy hand. My ruby glints
to outside snowed pipe where branches flat against the brick begin to look like rubber
insulation. I couldn’t have placed them better. Some people live in cramped conditions,
cold and uncomfortable, so I say prayers for them. And if the neighbors mistrust me,
well, I am having a dinner party with the raven. Would they care to join? The scars on
this body are only guests as well. They belong to the woman who is visiting my body.
Tonight we will present LBV 1806-20 with a hand-knit sweater. Come spring our good
works will keep a galaxy warm.