I’m shaving outside
with a noisy electric razor
and the parking lot asphalt is cold
beneath my feet,
dark and expansive.

the cusp of winter,
the still of a bird,
crouched before flight –
at this hour, the only sound
is the humming of my razor.

Arkansas holds me
by the heels –
Someone, a friend, calls to me from inside.

A small dog next door, behind a chain-link fence,
the really tiny kind people carry
in purses, protests
my presence, nearly
foaming with rage

I hear, simultaneously,
an ad for a toyota corolla and
sinister drums echoing, somewhere inside.

except actually, it isn’t the drums
that are sinister, it’s only a distant radio,
it’s only that
this early in the morning
this hound startling the birds from the trees
me from my stupor
the neighbors from coffee and toast –

the dog is furious –
it’s a beautiful morning,
and he’s raging
at me
the birds
the neighbors –

I hear a call again from indoors,
insistent,
but I’ve no desire this morning
to watch tv over a joint and dark coffee.

Surrounded by unluck
and yet alive in the morning

making the body into song.
A complimentary tune,
the dog and I together.
Variations on a theme.

It has cost me much,
but I have learned to survive
without living.

Maybe this winter
will be less a quiet sparrow
and more of an angry pekingese.