The Winter of Threadbare Souls

A canticle for the in-between

I wake to the hum
of subway steel, the rasp
of rain on brick,
my own breath, unraveling.

The city wears frost
like a borrowed coat,
sleeves too long, edges
frayed with old whispers.

I pull memory close,
a scarf against cold,
hold the smell of oranges
from a December long gone.

My mother, her voice
a thin chord plucked
in the kitchen, singing
to the yellow-eyed stove.

Her hands, cracked porcelain,
wringing dishwater, ash,
the soft percussion
of glass against glass.

I carry her rhythm,
a slow, inherited ache,
bones metronoming grief,
lungs rehearsing the blues.

Outside, pigeons shuffle
against the gray bite,
feathers like ashes,
eyes small and asking.

I think of prayers,
those small, winged things
we cast into wind,
fists unclenching, raw.

At the corner bodega,
the clerk nods, half asleep,
the fluorescent hum
like a throat clearing.

I buy matches, milk,
something to burn,
something to soften,
something to keep.

The aisles hum hymns
in old languages, cans
stacked like votives,
dust anointing the lids.

I could stay here,
among the quiet saints
of rice and ramen,
cereal boxes genuflecting.

But the door chimes
and I am exiled,
a wintered prophet,
milk sweating in hand.

The sky is iron,
a lid pressed tight,
the light thin as
hospital sheets, cold-drawn.

I pass the laundromat,
the wheeze of dryers,
clothes turning, turning,
as if in prayer.

Ghosts in cotton,
they dance without bodies,
without skin to bruise,
without names to keep.

I am jealous of them,
their clean whirl,
the way they emerge
warm and whole.

I used to believe
in rebirth, in the soft
alchemy of heat,
in water, in time.

Now, I am static,
a radio between stations,
white noise and echo,
a loop of half-words.

A bus gasps past,
and I see my face
in the glass, strange,
a sketch left in rain.

There are worlds here,
in the grit of sidewalks,
in the broken rhythm
of heels against concrete.

I feel them brush
against my coat,
lives passing through,
threading me with quiet.

Home is a room
in a building of rooms,
each a pulse,
a song in the dark.

I turn the key,
enter the dim hum,
the radiator’s cough,
the ghosts of old heat.

I place the milk
on the counter, watch
a drop slide down,
a slow unspooling.

This is what I have:
the white bone of light
through a dirty window,
the hum of the city,

and this body, tired,
but mine, a house
I keep returning to,
though the doors ache.

I strike a match,
let the flame sip
the edge of paper,
watch it curl, soft-mouthed.

The smoke climbs,
draws a map in air,
a labyrinth of ash,
a whisper of where.

And I am here,
a small, burning thing,
holding the heat
until it holds me.

Tomorrow will come,
a gray, unbuttoned coat,
and I will meet it
with milk and matches,

with this tired skin,
these hands that know
how to catch flame,
how to let go.

Outside, the night presses,
thick as old velvet,
and I, a needle,
pull the thread through.

My breath fogs glass,
a promise to stay,
to draw my name
in the frost, to mean it.

The world hums underfoot,
a low, feral hymn,
and I hum back,
soft, but whole.

I rest my head,
the dark like water,
and dream of oranges,
their bright, stubborn sun.

I will wake again,
to the rasp of rain,
to the hum of steel,
to the pulse of want —

and hold the warmth,
even as it leaves,
even as the light
pulls me toward morning.