A last hour in the blue light of a tiny kitchen.
Never thinking this is the last hour
in the blue light of a tiny kitchen,
the final slide from p.m. into a.m.
The smell of onions from the foothills
below the White Mountains,
why did I suddenly remember that?
Sedative-drip, cool running water,
the White Mountains,
a sense of rain coming up the far,
the unseen side.
And on that other side, the world I left behind.
I roll my purring hatred on its back,
scratching its belly and tugging its
sensitive ears, coaxing from it
the courage to reseal the scales on my eyes.
One day the crossing,
though not today and not tomorrow.