1871

Fingers slow tonight from
extra age, blown into my hands.

The wind’s extra fierce tonight.
So I sat by the lid of the fire pit
after we switched it off

in the cold tonight,
sat in the dark tonight and watched
the fire pit lid go from
hot to not so.

I don’t want to be Mrs. Leary’s Cow tonight, I thought.
Or Mrs. Leary. I don’t want to be
the lantern the cow kicked over
or Chicago burning after Mrs. Leary
went inside to watch Trevor Noah.

So I stayed and sat and watched the lid tonight
watched while the wind
blew my fingers
back to 1871

a date I plucked from Wikipedia tonight
where I also learned
the whole Mrs. Leary story was a lie.

She was real.
She was framed.
Heartbroken.

Innocent of
everything but
being Irish.