With peach clouds
Looks summery
But white roofs
And snowy roads
Say another thing
The sun lights the brick
Of the house
Across the street
And blue shadows fall
Between it and me
It’s early afternoon
and soon will grow dark
The path through the woods
Shadowed by exclamation marks
At night it’s coyotes
And a hunting moon
But in late afternoon
It’s men in hoods
Dark figures trudging
Through well packed snow
And women oblivious
Walking alone
They say there are monsters
In the woods
That prowl and hunt
Until the dawn
But I know better
Than to trust old myths,
The monsters I know
Live in town