-January intrada-

1.
twenty minutes awake.

ten minutes into sunup and

the rooms of the house accompany the stillness.

pausing to look outside across the landscape,

Schubert's Piano Quintet

introduces its palette of atmosphere
to the light of an overnight snowfall.

the kitchen microwave continues
wafting its noxious veil of fish

the morning after warming

a late-night snack of leftover haddock.

the microwave spun my pant for fish,––

that once sweet, moist captain’s cut,

the true catch-of-the-day from the stern-

trawler's nets of New Bedford, that salty, lamp-

oiled town of whale-hunters turned fish-nabbers,

to a rubberized, simply dead late-night snack. 

2.
when the roads clear,

when the Sun warms the pavement

I’ll drive to the beach,––

the great beach eastward where

the towering heathlands yield
their pounds of clay to relentless tides, where

only those who claim

a right of kinship dare show-up.