in bursts of static song over a short-wave radio
in the coldest winter tucked into his blue wool socks
through the red, muddy water in the gutter after rain
in the cornerstone of the ground floor of his dormitory
woven into the wonderful purple of a southern twilight
and the strutting peacock of a clear mid-afternoon sky
up a steep ladder, down a steep hill: wherever he draws
breath: the oxygen, the carbon, the nitrogen, the pine
—Donna Vorreyer, from A House of Many Windows