tonight

Tonight cars are slipping down the street. I hear them from my bed--a welcome change from last night, when it was me in the car, creeping for nine hours across barren Ontario, over the Blue Water Bridge, all the way back to this corner of the mitten. But this morning, outside my office window, the sky was nearly blue and the trees wore white.

Tonight I steamed the windows with ragout. Sautee spicy turkey sausage with yellow onions and cloves of garlic. Add white wine and chicken stock, whole black peppercorns and bay leaf. Stir in cubes of red-skinned potatoes and butternut squash, then chopped sage and rosemary. Five minutes before serving, toss in torn kale. Crusty bread and a handful of parmesan is all else you need.

Tonight I unpacked my suitcase and put it in the closet, then realized that it will be back out in two weeks. Two weeks from tonight the grades will be tabulated, the final red marks made in the tiny columns. But tonight I have a dog sleeping on my legs, afraid that I might be going somewhere without him.

Tonight I have a pile of mail to pick through--new music and a necktie from Wisconsin, stationary catalogs, LL Beans and cooking magazines, an acceptance. Tonight I'm thinking of bomber hats, of damask, of elephants.

Tonight I hung silver snowflakes in my windows. Tonight I came home to the white blaze of my neighbor's Christmas tree--out in the hallway, lighting the evenings.