on a dark and stormy night, when
                                 things
                                        are about to happen again,
        grief lays you bare, bones white in the darkness and rain.
there's a cat, a
                spotted
                        cat,
        drowning slowly in the rain outside, out of
                                                        doors.
        it is lying on the body of a dead man, a man it
                                                        killed
                for warmth
        not realizing that the warmth
                                        dies too.
        it is lying on the body of a woman and i
                                                        grieve.

inside the doors, there is a fire in the grate and a man tending it.
he knows of nights,
                ordinary nights, like this
                one,
and he knows of the
                       things
                                that can happen,
and he knows of being laid
                                bare
                                to the bone
by grief.
he knows of being laid bare
                                to the bone
by me.

of all the many things that he does not tell me,
        he does not tell me tonight that he knows
        already
        what i am not telling him:  that
                                         things
                                                will happen soon.

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