When asked to give collateral I might say
the patient is buried inside his schema, down to socks and stones.
Has a primitive fear of birds as dismal augurs, specifically
the raven, the palm-sized owl. Woke up one day
clearly not himself. I must be careful our worldviews
do not bleed. When I deliver him to the carers
we both note the precision with which tree trunks stand
encased in snow. This admirable geometry
seems toy-like, and the thistle-bird that makes so free
with spider webs. A manufactured peace
has settled below the crust of ice
where even now regeneration stubbornly takes place.
Yet it’s the human that leaves detailed notes
about futurity, hoping to be found. If this has not happened
in your life at 5 a.m. that is well; go lovingly about sunrise
tasting the lemony frost, training up a miniature rose.
What ocean fathoms must you plumb?
What scarlet beacon flickering in your water glass?
–
Carol Alexander is co-editor of the anthology Stronger Than Fear: Poems of Empowerment, Compassion, and Social Justice. She is the author of the poetry collections Blue Vivarium, Fever and Bone, Environments, and Habitat Lost. Her poems appear or will appear in About Place Journal, Another Chicago Magazine, Asheville Poetry Review, Bluestem, Burningword Literary Journal, The Common, The Comstock Review, Cumberland River Review, Denver Quarterly, Free State Review, Mudlark, NELLE, Narrative Northeast, New World Writing Quarterly, One, Potomac Review, RHINO Poetry, San Pedro River Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, The Summerset Review, Southern Humanities Review, Third Wednesday, Verdad, Western Humanities Review and Verse Daily.
© 2026, Carol Alexander
Halfway Down the Stairs 