We were besieged: iced winds from barren grounds,

then snow hushed down. That night, she screamed – breaking

her wedding china piece by piece. A car

slowed in the muffled street. The deranged have

no dignity or beauty but the trick

of absolute exclusion – only snow prints

left, scattered porcelain and their caged birds

swaggering in the locked house filling with dark.

He waited – for who would anticipate

life’s accidents, mysteries, in rooms furnished

with grace and littered with utensils

of barbarism? We occupy

the suburbs of folly.