Sheltering in Place

The desert wind outside my window howls.
Tree branches, desiccated by the rainless winter,
toss and rustle with eerily sibilant sounds.
The wind itself moans as it angles up the wash,
tenor crescendo diminishing to hollow baritone,
with crickets performing a monotonous percussion
in the background.
The wind shifts, striking my house head on.
The screen rattles against the sliding glass door.
I am fragile and alone.

Game Night

My friend’s parrot talks,
or at least whistles and squawks
over voice chat as our team kills
orcs, demons and even evil gods.
The video game over, my friend
drapes a towel over the cage
to calm the parrot to sleep.
I lie in bed, restless with the full moon
casting a stark white light into my room.
I draw a blanket over my head,
and with my eyes shaded
like the caged bird, sleep.

Carol Poster is the author of three chapbooks of poetry, most recently Returning to Dust (Finishing Line Press 2017), and verse translations from Latin, Classical Greek, and French.  She has also published three books of commercial nonfiction and currently lives in Tucson, Arizona where she works as a freelance writer and photographer. Her books can be found at: https://www.amazon.com/Carol-Poster/e/B001JRUYTA

Image by Sue in az – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2397970