Jacksonville, Vermont

Because I am not married, I have the skin of an orange that has spent its life in the dark. Inside the orange I am blind. I cannot tell when a hand reaches in and breaks the atoms of the blood. Sometimes a blackbird will bring the wind into my hair. Or the yellow clouds falling on the cold floor are animals fighting each other out of their drifting misery. All the women I have known have been ruined by fog and the deer crossing the field at night.