A Red Light Warms My Soul

Rubber hits ice, air escapes
like a bursting balloon
pulling me sideway then
down, as if a giant hole
in the pavement sucked
me into darkness.

Horns muffled and water
rushed inside, touching
my feet, rushing up
to my knees, as cold as
autumn air. I
taste sharp cracks
in ice as if a razor blade
cut my skin.

I can hear the six o'clock plane
heading west, and the bells
of Saint Agnes. Like the
flushing of a toilet, pulling
down thru a drain, sucking
all that is…

I hear the wind cut thru
bare branches
of a tree, as bodies swarm
on top of me, on ice. My teeth
clenched, my head touching
the steering wheel. Then
a red light warmed my soul.

Nancy Duci Denofio
all rights reserved
(This is a taste of what will be in
my new book, soon to be published.)