November 23

The house is so quiet,
I can almost hear the dread

of tomorrow, outsized,
and mostly undeserved.

Every clear day here I marvel
at how open things are–

there’s a clarity in Winter.
Or, less distractions,

and so at night the walls
come in closer

and closer; I drink a little
to breathe and think

in three days, I’ll be
halfway through

the mountains,
the best cure I know

for claustrophobia
masked by the onus

of responsibility–
to flat-out flee,

to get gone as a white-tail
swallowed by trees

and the silence of
accumulating snow.

OPTIONAL POETRY