#decembering

This city disintegrates into fat flakes and spills
a billowing silence over crooked branches
of birch, bowtied bags, an ambulance. The grid
exhales. Times Square in dress rehearsal
practices its celebration for a new decade knee
deep in confetti. The countdown could be
for a departed era, the way snow trembles around
brass lamps, wind unbraiding a woman’s hair.
The city is a forest, a village, an empty cathedral.
It is almost impossible to believe in the yellow-
lit tunnels of trumpets beneath my feet,
a damp and relentless scurrying. New York
is layered with dens. Roofs keep hidden
the secret of bats, their dark bickering elbows,
and below the sink, mice take precise bites
of white bread. In my own nest I spread a buttery
light and drink red wine assiduously. I desire
velvet and lace, oysters in June but pearls
in December, silk, warm milk, the low notes
of a bassoon through the window before
my thick, ursine sleep. I will wake only in time
for flakes to become white butterflies feasting
on the first fleecy buds while I fix my fur,
hungry once more to see the city reflected
in your eyes, those dark, glimmering berries.

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)