Stacy Blair (Indiana, USA): "Vieille fillette nocturne"

6:30 a.m. is when my heater keels over;
dried up somehow from the ice storm
which punctuated the night's prose on my

attic windows. This is where I live: the attic.
By 9 a.m. it's all slush, and my furnace is
hot and wet again. Cold shower: I need

one— present tense, of course. I will stop
not moving and wriggle a bit under covers,
twisting my body up in the blankets like

a fork in spaghetti. Three of them: not forks,
blankets. Three second-hand covers collected,
collect hair and skin samples from their human

domains: past, present, future. Who knows
how many have come before me, but I'll burn
this when I'm done. Maybe then, I'll light

a match to my own epidermis.

© Stacy Blair 2009