Tangled by its tail in the still-bare limbs of that old black elm, twirling and crackling there, in a hard March wind, dangling upside down like the escape artist in his white sack.
The tail twisted up like a rung-out shirt, with that ― you know ― second level of twist, suggesting a spiral staircase. And when the wind calms down, it unwinds for a bit ― and reposes a nervous chrysalis ― before rewinding ― yet again.
The leaves of spring and summer will cover its stripping ― all its paper gone by fall ― and so there leaving for the winter view: the spine and the spar of a balsam cross.
