Wind riving through my moon-spackled tatters
& my veins snagged in fists of bruised cloudlight.

                          Sidewalks, rain-sogged in sallow lamplight
splattered along street after street crowded with

                          soot-gray tenements, crowded with front yards
clamoring with witch hazel shrubs stooping

                         as if waterlogged in cold, cold air. I’ve gladly
accepted my fate, no longer lacquered in green,

                         no longer dressed in red. My soul, now smelling
of compost, shale-brittle, whorling up like a breeze

                         kited on the cusp of my next life, far from this village,
& whisking into skies sprayed with the scurf of stars.