Life

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

we went past
somebody’s place,
and there were things
sitting all over
and kids
and a woman looking
out a window
at a cat,
and the kids
were in puddles
with their eyes in oceans,
and they were waiting
for a storm or something,
and the place
looked twice as junky
as it did when the snow was,
but it didn’t matter
because it smelled warm,
and the sky was heavy,
and life stood in the mud, open-mouthed.