The graceful branches caught
within her windowframe
are laced with yellowgreen,
the promises of leaves.
The sky falls softly
in a rain, as if to coax
the ground again to opening.
A round brightyellow bird
frets at the feeder
in a tiny dancing step.
Along the vague periphery
her neighbors slam car doors;
umbrellaed children make
their puddled way to school.
She calculates calling-in
sick, conjuring a phone voice
that convinces, to sit all day
upon this end of the couch
and watch this single
windowed square of world.
Rising only up for cups
of tea, to rearrange
contented limbs beneath
the afghan's covering.
She does feel almost sick
then with some mildly
debilitating melancholia,
or the small, rumbling
starting of cramps.
A pressing need to
curl endlessly in.
-- Deb Cooper