Elizabeth Hutchinson
Arborvitae
Christmas is over.
All day it rained and now
as the sun is setting,
the first fat flakes of snow.
Your fever is spiking
again. All night the fire
inside you raged
darkened, flared again.
You woke at one
and two and three
and four, woke and nursed
woke and nursed, woke
and vomited until you
and me and the bedspread
were covered in
greasy white curds.
Outside the arborvitae
tree of life, sustainer
of weary travelers is covered
in a thin white veil.
A loose string
of multicolored lights
keeps hurling itself
against the side of the house.
The wind makes
the neighbor’s birch dance
shaking her catkins
limbs akimbo. She dances
the way I used to
drunk and unruly, swaying
wildly, caring
for no one but herself.
Liz Hutchinson is a writer living on Cape Cod. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Press and Incessant Pipe. Her first collection, Animalalia, is available from YesNo Press.