Alibi by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Everything is either dead or hibernating,
that is what I like about winter.  No bugs
buzzing off with chunks of your face while you
parade under patterned awning that seems scared of the rain.
Like walking into a Sartre novel and wondering why
everyone has to be the murderer.  Dr. Holmes can take
a holiday with this one.  You just know he has the best
alibi of all, the same way you walk past the perfume ladies
in the department store knowing they will smell
better than everyone else you will meet today. 
Ever seen a purse snatcher huddled in the bushes
in the dead cold of January?  There are time constraints
governed by frostbite. Everything is brought inside.
Smokers and all their cigarettes.  Accusations
over unmade beds.  Plastic chairs for all the plants
to sit in.  In the corner, by a box of old pictures
no one can remember taking.

*****

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review and The New York Quarterly.