Like crawling black monsters

the big clouds tap at my window,

their shooting liquid fingers slide

over the staring panes

and merge on the red wall.

Some of the fingers pull at the hinges

and whisper insistently: “Let us come in,

the cruel wind whips and drives us

till we are sore and in despair.”

But I cannot harbor the big crawling black clouds,

I cannot save them from the angry wind.

In a tiny crevice of my aching heart

there is a big storm brewing

and loud clamour and constant prayer

for the reflection of snow-capped mountains

on a distant lake.

Tires and dazed I sit on a bear skin

and timidly listen to the concert of storms.

is like being burned up
in a twelfth-floor elevator.
Or drowned in a flipped SUV.

It’s like waking with scalpels 
arrayed on my chest.
Like being banished to 1983.

Having a fight with you 
is never, ever less horrid: that whisper 
that says you never loved me—

my heart a stalled engine
out the little square window.
Your eyes a white-capped black sea.