Songs In The Night

Nights, when icicles
clattered against the eaves
like ancestral bones,
my parents and I huddled
in our warm den,
pondered crossword puzzles
solved crimes with Nancy Drew
gasped at the man circling plates
on ten sticks (at the same time)
on The Ed Sullivan Show.
By ten, we ran shivering
to icy beds, army blankets
layered like tent tarps
over our waning warmth.

One morning, after such a storm,
cheeks flushed and bellies taut
with homemade sausage and biscuits,
our neighbor's dog lay frozen
on our doorstep, sides caved in
from his panting struggle to reach home,
not yet knowing his late afternoon
bunny-chase through the woods
would be in synch with the fat lady's
last song.


Pris Campbell
©2006

Published in The Dead Mule
    Spring Issue 2007


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