A summer evening alone

It's easy to tongue and swallow the warmth of a scarf, to wear
My addiction to knit cotton yarn around my chin, to massage
The stubble on my neck. The cut musings reaching for
A beard --  the cipher spelling out the spoiled fat thighs
Of the child on my larynx. This is the soft fluffy dragon
Of luxury. To wear a scarf (with recklessness) against the purple
Bite of march, that is the awkward pause of fabric
And grandmother’s finger tips. My heart gallops, whinnies,
Roars, breathes fire -- but that is only the moment, and it burns
Away to gold embers and the un-treasured fingers of soot that were
Trees before I raged. She whispers grass, dead and brown and full
Of maybe-later-grubs;  She prophecies the happiness of soon,
when the scarf is not wool or cotton, but a weave of salty sweat.
I greet this dream with the lyrics of forgetfulness, and impatience
Licked, lapped and running; swirled, blurred and soft. Wait
I think, pull the ends tighter. Like a wish for a python’s embrace
Self becomes storm, snow becomes self, she becomes the suffering
And the hands on my watch knit one, pearl two, the pattern is cold
I shiver. I have no hat. I have no coat. My mouth is dry.
I can not swallow, even the spit from my scarf. Some afternoon
Next summer the sun will paint me, and this is the winter daze
I will recall as I vomit. She whispers the silver of cloud backs
Up and down the snow ballets around the hush. A door breaks
The icy thoughts with a foreign-voiced clang, and I think of Canada
Geese somewhere in Arkansas. She is still gone. Still I
Wrap the weave around my neck. The scarf, she makes me warm
Er.