The cottage is as compact and tight

as a vacuum/shrink-wrap bag used to

keep meat and seafood frozen forever

and when thawed as fresh as the day

they were slaughtered or pulled from

the sea. He sits and watches the wind

blowing through the birches in back.

He hears nothing. He wonders if the

cow and the lobster hear the suck-

ing noise when the freezer door is

opened or the thud when it is closed,

or, if like the man in the cottage, life

silently but swiftly passes by.