Good Bones

They call it settling
the reason this aging
plaster suffers cracks:
fine webs of them throughout the house,
a few deep enough to cause concern.

We exercise maintenance:
replace a rotting joist,
caulk the gaps,
ream the pipes and flush the tank,

but the to-do list is never done:
the back door is drafty,
electrical shorts leave us in the dark,
and the plumbing suffers a constant drip.

Good bones, they say,
keep the walls standing
solid around me,
until age and gravity
exact their toll

and I no longer recognize
this house in which I dwell.

Bird of Peace

You cut me off
and steal my space.
I’m so mad I could spit.

I’m a lady,
so instead
I flip you the bird.

Righteous I picture me
pumping my middle finger at you,
riding the surge between my head and my heart,

my heart and my
– oh – my heart

shoves my – index – finger
too – at you.

Peace.
– Jane

Stepping outside to feed the birds
I find fog risen in the night.
It does not swirl around my legs
but parts and leaves a path in my wake.

Beneath the solid cloud unseen
winter grass crackles.
Black birdseed tossed to the ground
skitters and disappears.

Returning to the house I find
the bottom porch stair
where I slip and nearly fall.
Hidden ice.

Hidden eighteen years ago
when I visited you in Amsterdam.
We planned my move to you,
our move to winter on the North Sea.

Fog hid the crystalled sand
that crunched beneath our feet.
You hid two women from each other,
living two lives that couldn’t help but overlap –

fog over grass, fog over sand –
until she knew, then I knew.
This morning, sun rising to heat
the cold earth: fog lifts, ice melts.

– Jane