Thoughts of St. Anthony

The house smelled like burning plastic for days. I opened the windows in winter to let the air in, air that gripped us with cold and did little to diminish the smell of evil. My husband put the pan with the singed handle on the ground outside the back door, the square one good for grilled cheeses. It's still there, filled with water. Sometimes needles of ice articulate the surface, other times it boils with falling rain drops. Cooking on its own, like nature has always done, weightlessly, while the civilized drudge up and down staircases.