Exile and a query to the cottonwoods in the backyard

Would she dream again of that alien house of her childhood, sealed like a spaceship with its white noise humming air conditioning as she drifted through the grey twilight of predawn, wrapped in an old yellow floral sheet for a kimono and of tucking her bare feet beneath her on the cool, soft sofa and fixing her eyes on some black and white precision feast of silver grains witnessing the hardships of postwar life?

Taken a Shine

I wish you'd come around!

She’d howl at the moon, all glassy-eyed through the thick bottom of that

mason jar

pouring heartbreak down her throat.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

She crept down the fire escape again, wretched in the vicious cold of morning. Glanced around one more time, the backyard was dulled, the hues broken and the white lattice arch showing its bones through dead vines. But she remembered how it had looked in September. She slunk around the back of the house, narrowly missed hitting her head on a window a/c unit, hands shoved in her pockets. Returning to exile.

A tender envy held her in rigor mortis, lockjaw of happiness.
Wood smoke languished on her pashmina and she begged it to stay.
Her pocket were full of holy relics, plain wooden pencils from pinatas and a bottle cap from a Christmas Moerlein. She laid them out on the breakfast table, little artifacts brought back through the looking glass. The taste of the beer resurrected spectres of September in a rush. With Over the Rhine on her lips, she huddled next to the fire, admiring the splendor of the assembled company as they salsaed and mamboed on the wet, cold driveway. Here it was a joy to be a fly on the wall. Ursula longed for such a family, the sort of longing that compels one to eat whitewash and dirt, the sort of longing that fills you up to your eyeballs until you puke because you can't imbibe any more of it. She slept like a baby on the futon while the wind swelled up and roared around the old house.

Switchblades Preferred

Ursula stiffed it through her shift, with a new notch in the game of resignation building in between her shoulders. He brushed her elbow with his fingers several times and she did not respond at all. Inwardly, she sneered. Setting the container carelessly onto the scale, she traced it back to the source, or as near as she could get. She thought, but didn’t say aloud, you see that line of demarcation back there by the trees? Back there, no, further still? Flirt, that’s right, go on, flirt. Joke about hooking up before you get married, and I will fake laugh and slow-burn full of rage because behind every joke is some shred of truth. Keep making passes at me under the cover of good humor and comedy. That makes it totally acceptable. Do you realize, I’m counting the hours until I will never have to see you again? Yet, sometimes it is enough to hold a set of aces in your hand. She wondered and frowned at the line of demarcation and how everyone came waltzing on over it, cool as you please, as though she’d sent them a gold-leaf invitation.

She fled early, speeding down the golden-lit business park boulevard home, the corner of her eye fixed on a frozen plume rising from one of the office complexes. Shed a layer of snake skin joyfully as soon as she got in the door and pulled the postcard from the pages of a book.
It said little. Albuquerque. She thought of heavy snow as I-40 wound through the rock and then a blaze of lights sprawling out beside and below them. She thought of the green dash lights and crimson taillights painting his features. She thought of the enormous, brilliant rising moon. It raised more questions than it answered, but its tangibility soothed. Remote, yet remembered. She wished he'd let her try to help. She hoped he didn't think she'd make things worse.
"Who told you there was no such thing as real, true, eternal love? Cut out his lying tongue!"

Grey wool socks

She drove out to the boardwalk after their basset hound fell asleep. The dog was old and getting deaf. She’d never been a watch dog, but if she’d seen Ursula leave, she would sit and cry until she woke the house. No one was awake out here. She lifted the hatchback gate and pulled out the sleeping bag which she always kept there. The stars were still pretty faint from the neighborhoods looming on two sides of the wetland. The moon hadn’t risen yet, but her night vision was pretty good and she walked some distance into the swamp. She tugged her hat snugger and the cottonwoods whispered hoarsely at her for taking such a risk with her health. She zipped herself into the sleeping bag securely and sighed and slept. In the morning she could see her breath. She drove home and piled logs in the fireplace, the old hound worrying around her ankles like a cat. Hearing people begin to stir above and below stairs, she made coffee and a large batch of eggs. Setting it off the burner, she poured herself a mug and sat on the couch, tucking her grey wool stockinged feet beneath her. The basset hound set her head on the sofa cushion and looked up at her anxiously.

Angel looks down at him and says "Oh, pretty boy can't you show me nothing but surrender?"

Damn you, you fresh-faced Judas
I would redeem you
So give me my sin again.

Hoarfrost and moss

She lowered her tongue, curling the edges and forcefully spat. The gob burst on the pavement a story below the viewing deck with a modestly satisfying thwack. Her shoulders remained tense however as she jammed her fists into the pockets of her slate down vest. Ursula burrowed into the vest as she unhappily scanned the wetland before her. It was late in the year for many birds.

The last rumor to reach her said the werewolf had been near the border in late October. With her furrowed brow she cursed him. As though her blind, uncomprehending animosity might have any effect on him whatsoever. With a huff of clouded breath, she pivoted and climbed down the ladder. She stalked down the wooden boardwalk into the swamp, the malcontented rhythm of her footfall frightening off any remaining wildlife.

The cottonwoods clattered paper dry skeletal leaves at her in rebuke and she huffed again. Yellowed grass rustled only slightly and she stopped in the utter silence of dusk stirring its foggy digits over the water. She squinted at the dying sun and glanced down at her Grandpa’s dusty binoculars, resting over her belly. Screwing her eyes shut tight, Ursula put down an impulse to stomp her foot like a child. She listened. It was quiet still. Winter had come, werewolf or no. Winter had come and she was glad.

November Thunder

She felt the energy on her ride home.
It was going to storm tremendously.
In about an hour.
Her blood stood up and answered and she wanted a midnight adventure.
Looking from the sullen ruby cloud ceiling and the lights over the bridge, she glanced down on the glittering parking lot and saw the werewolf walking at a distance.
The wind kicked up and the paper factory on the river glowed behind the trees.
“Florescent lights engage, blackbirds frying on a wire,” she hummed.
Vertigo was building up behind her eyes like a migraine.