Wintering

You were the kid who learned all the lines in the school play. One character was not enough. You wanted to wear every shoe; grind your elbows in the grit of every windowsill. You didn't like to choose. You let everyone set up shop in your heart until it teemed like a black market in an Olympic stadium in a former Soviet Republic.

One day you unwittingly come to the office wearing two different shoes. You compliment a friend's boots. She asks, "Do you want to borrow one of them?" There are half a dozen coats slung across the wall between your cubicles. She has a hundred foot roll of "Everything is okay" barricade tape stashed in a drawer. She plans to cordone off your cubicle so that people stop asking you.

Now the vacant lot on Caton is a forest: fir trees felled upstate and hauled here. You are addicted to the scent. You stick your head out the window for a fix: while talking on the phone, while brushing your teeth. You bring home all the coats that have accumulated in the office throughout the turning of the seasons. You put them on and sleep, layered, on your fire escape, because being outside makes time last longer. You always knew that was true for daylight: as a kid you stomped about the Park, getting close to birds to see their hearts quiver. You wore a red coat so you would not lose yourself. Your stomach knotted with the dying of the light. This was grief, daily as bread; no one else seemed seized by it. Now, sleeping on your fire escape, you draw out the night. Your shoes match, the coats become you. If you cast your lines, the fish will bite.