code

Imagine a day imagine
waking
to falling snow falling
somehow everywhere
filling in
the boundaries of your
yard within the fence line filling
in the spaces between grass blades
and dead leaves
dog tracks and gopher holes except
for. Imagine waking
one snowy morning to find
the borders of your house
cleared and clean
as if no one
had ever been there. Who
has done such a thing
you might ask
rhetorically
since no one could answer. Would
the answer you provided
satisfy?

What if you woke
one morning
to step out of the shower
glimpsing your wet
nakedness
stepping over the tub
out of the shower
and saw on the mirror
a series of thumb
prints thumb and fingertip
dots even dashes with frayed
edges written not in soap
but in the steam a clear
message since you could see
your own eye in a blurry
negative circle
right there in your own
bathroom right there
on your own mirror over
printed over your wet
nakedness. Would you stop
struggle to break
the code? Would you
wonder the sender would
you read it even
if it were not
meant for you? How
would you know?

Think now that you had
a line
thought locked
in your head. As life
intervened, thought lost
to parallel parking
or needing to pee
deciphering
a code waiting
for a note
in soap or steam trying
to sleep as snow crashes
about the house
a line forgotten
half remembered
how would how could
you recall that? What line
would you write
in its place
in snow or in steam? After
life intervened would you try
to remember the words?