“You know I can’t—
can’t breathe
when you keep all the windows shut!”
My mother’s consumption is
always severe
but only mind-deep.
All the windows here are wide open
on three sides of the screen-porch,
the porch open as it was always
open
before window panes.
Only one glass pane then in our new door.
The single glass pane reminds me now
of the false place
outside—
Europe’s cold war only a storm-past zephyr,
Korean conflict a sticky miasma—
bloody cypher to come.
We in the part of America
we claim as America
are faithlessly victorious.
Behind glass.
Sheltered in our porch
east-facing
in a crisp wind from the west
that we’d have to think to face before we
discover the source of air.