THE TRAP

I hurry back
in dark glasses
in light north wind
over crusted snow
thru thin woods
oak leaves
to the seventy-five-
year-old summer home
unbolt the door
and grope
among musky
heaps of furniture
for the dirty animal
       wintering
in my place

clapboard walls
rosy as a brain
with snowshine
clotted
with images
   beyond shutters
and the warm shade
of that ornate porch
there
         in the rich
infected light
of mid-July
that small boy
with his thin smile
of strategies
straddling
   granite rocks
      denying denying
   fighting for himself
escaping up trees
   dropping, pissing,
      blaspheming, gyrating
   darting to oblivion
in the salty green
peace of flowers
and crickets
in the hot
meadow
                     my god !
I stand still
in this pink-walled
winter room
too cold to live in
so close
I cannot work
my way back
                       around
the scarred furniture
pile high and dark
like feces
blocking
the open door