the freeze

I'll stand beside that tree tonight and when they come back, I'll make them pay. Not for the graffiti. That's important. Those old splashes of blacken blue, orange and red letters have been there longer than I. Between us, there's more grainy drips in our faces than all the brick combined.

Even my hair, short and white matches the grass the paint dives into: a fine, thin buzz, coated with the first frost and combed in streaks one way.

But unlike the grass and the earth where everything is eventually swallowed, my own black ink shows through, four faded bars with bent ends. I've worn a hat for thirty years, an old fisherman's wool, but tonight I want them to see it, to know.

In the hours to come, I imagine the light fading out, the chill setting it. The crackling of moss up the back of the tree as it freezes while the dank green poofs in the underarms of the bare branches sweat and ripen.

Not for me. I won't feel the freeze tonight. Tomorrow, perhaps. But not tonight.