Here's a cup of rosehip tea, a vodka snowshoe,
a cigar. Here are my wet gloves
dangling from their nails, holding nothing but air
in the shape of a thing--shaft, handle,
cylinder, smoke. Now the dog's asleep
in a parallelogram of sun, and one by one
a cold scent lures the cats from their lairs,
ears half-cocked. They sniff, they pat.
One hooks a claw in the woof or the warp
and pulls just enough to topple the sack
from hearth to carpet nap and jumps back
at the dim clack-clack inside.
Low in her throat, the dog rumbles--creak
of stone, light fall. Call it Sunday, a day of rest.
I blow a huge, undulant ring of smoke
and wait.