Year of the Snake

Albino Squirrel

59 Albino Squirrel Pumpkin after pumpkin crumples into the rows of front porches, lopsided faces like stroke victims, and it is the time of year when I avoid their drooping gaze because I, too, feel disconsolate—scooped out and overblown with too much ripeness. Maple leaves palm the wet sidewalk with red, splayed fingers as if to keep the mold and damp from rising, and my mind stretches taut as the lines of web that spiders pluck and tap with bent, clever legs— their nimble pizzicato a Morse code of desire and fear. Last night a possum bared its teeth to me and hissed from the corner of my back porch where it crouched, all shiny tin-foil eyes and terse, bald pink tail when I surprised its meticulous inventory of the neighbors’ trash. Each time I tried to sneak out to the dumpster, ridiculous, armed with a broom in one hand, a Big Bear bag full of cat poop in the other, it was still there, crouching, nocturnal and vigilant, hiss spiraling into a growl. I left it and went to bed where my lover cocooned in the brown tick and hum of the electric blanket, tightly rolled and snug as an enchilada—oblivious to my attempts to unwrap her, to the shift and held-breath tension of the bed as I hunched into my own, separate blanket and touched myself. Delicate flickering to ease down the slick, fragrant warmth until everything was satin, swollen ripe fruit, and desire uncoiled its heavy braid in dull, furtive pulse beats. Sometimes it seems 60 as if there is no warning, not even a slender line of thread whose vibrations I can decode, and I woke in the morning desiccated and numb, tangled in bedclothes. On the way to the bus stop, toward the certainty of another day measured in tea bags, timesheets, the endless bony click and clatter of computer keys—a day I know will fade as easily as regret—I am startled by leaves hitting asphalt as they plummet from trees. I can’t help thinking this must be like the sound of all those butterflies sprayed with insecticide at the end of the summer exhibit, cascading onto the conservatory floor—the soft, brittle rain of color, motion suddenly stopped. I’ve carried this peculiar sorrow in my heart as if it were a sparrow in a cage, and on mornings like this I can feel it swell its breast, puffing out feathers against the chill. I see an albino squirrel weaving its way through the rush-hour line of cars, leaping onto the sidewalk to pause in front of me—like white velvet, with sleek muscular haunches, a glamorous plume of tail. Red jeweled eyes glittered like pomegranate seeds, and he gripped an enormous acorn in his mouth as if it were everything—carrying it toward the promise of his well-lined nest, toward warmth and sleep, the solitary ambrosia of oblivion. ...