I’m old and I’m home alone
hiding out
hanging on

and reading a letter
from dear Penelope
who left with her deported husband
and arrived in India 
just in time to have a March baby

My Asian flu 
creates dreams
of deer: 
five of them standing
by Alligator Lake
watching the water
until a great snapping motion
causes them to startle and leap
the lake like flying reindeer

But in my real life, here
in Temple Terrace,
it’s dogs on leashes,
straining to tear each other apart,
that wake me to see
the orange glow of the blue moon