Aubade

“… One must glitter.
One must swim through the day.” – George Szirtes

They’re stretching the surfaces, dead cells sloughing off; they’re breaking apart the wrappers of rubbery grey that held us indoors, marooned us in the questionable comfort of sad beds. See those first creamy islands of pink and white pushing like familiar hurt against brick, hear the bird calling more insistently every day above the repetitious wheezing of the laundry machine. It might be cold, it might swing straight from not even spring to summer. Lint in the pockets of each coat, dust under the armchairs. Heart like a listening ear, uncurling like the lines scribed on a nautilus; little bareheaded snail emerging tentatively from the only door of its cramped house.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.