Winter, the dead of…

Dear Glen

Sorry this card is late. It has been so cold here that on Friday afternoon Time itself froze, solid. When we finally got the old girl defrosted it was already Tuesday, you’re birthday, and this card was still not posted.

The circumstance was as surreal as the times that winter forced us on our backs to worm beneath the old house where copper pipes ran like bluish patina blood vessels in the frigid narrows of the crawl space.

A ceiling of raw oak floorboards
A floor of bare earth
Stalagmites of rat dung rising
Rusted nail stalactites looming

We pushed our bodies through the depths like some yet undiscovered subterranean species, vulnerable at all times to attack by wild creatures nesting in dark recesses.

With the warm air from the lungs of hair dryers connected to long umbilical cords of electricity we thawed the crystals of ice that clogged the water lines and emerged stiff and cold from the underworld with just enough time to eat breakfast before the school bus arrived.

Many happy returns