Vacuums

She had bad dreams. Bad enough to wake her at four in the morning and leave her glazed in the direction of the clock, motionless, wondering about the grisly capacities of her subconscious.

Run on Run on Run on Sentence

Tapped her flat-soled foot on concrete until the drums of her ears dilated her eyes and the reverb shrieked and drowned weeks of sighs and bass beat touched her organs with rich earthquakes,
gentle and deep.

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.

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.