Air vent streamers wag like tongues from the wall
of the Ozark cave. Cold stiffens the stream splitting
the floor, and the cracking ice pops. Beneath the glaze,
blind fish swim, pale sloops defying the current’s mute
push. Outside, miles east, peonies bloom green and gold
into the dark. Stars split and fade from flowering
crossettes, and the trailing booms stun three thousand
red-winged blackbirds from the sky. Sunrise sparks,
and the sleepy folk of Beebe wake with a fleeting sense
of the new. Their lawns gleam black and red, as if a slave ship
had wrecked on an inland tide and spilled its bleeding load.