Untitled

On the way home, I take off
a pink mitten, and push
scan, and for awhile
I drive and scan. Then,
I settle on something classical:
oboe, strings, solo flute
lyrics for the swelling hills
covered in a blazing white slab of
February snow, undulating unbroken
and soft
as I drive by. My phone rings
twice when you call, and I
pull the car over onto
the shoulder of the road
to better be able
to talk to you. I close my eyes
and I listen to your voice:
the timbre of the air you breathe
vibrating through your vocal folds, your
particular phonation.
I can't name them,
but I know them by heart,
even with my eyes closed: your voice's
range and weight, your most usual
breaks, and lifts -
I don't say that much. I mostly listen. I turn down
the radio, and I close my eyes. I hear
your words,
I know
your voice,
I can see
the air you breathe
pouring in, and then
lifting through,
and then sighing out of you. These days
this is mostly
how I talk to you.

Psalm 30:5

For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favor is life: 
weeping may endure for a night, but 

joy cometh in the morning.

Untitled

I think about quitting
Facebook, altogether:

maybe I don't want to know. I don't want to know, but
then I look

I can't seem to help but look

I don't like how that feels about me, to me. Looking

and snooping around

and, possibly, not having anything better to do. Is your Macintosh

a $3000-dollar

Facebook machine? I think about putting up
a timely quote
a smart remark
something sincere
genuine. It all plays badly, in preview. I think about
chiming in
but I don't like the tone, mine, or anyone else's. So I just say,
I like it

and then leave.

But I'll be back
sooner than I want to
sooner, and more often, than I'll admit
and I know it already
unfortunately

I want to quit this tired and kind of dirty thing
I want to be better

but we're not yet done hooking up.

Untitled

Snow comes, swirling in the coming dark outside
I turn to watch it, framed by plate-glass windows, while
a good-looking young man makes my espresso drink, and
the girl he works with, who has a famous-sounding voice
that I can't place
turns to watch it too, and in the absence
of any other customers
and the abrupt quiet of the shop, from the Christmas
CD ending, and the hissing steam of the
espresso machine and the refrigeration case cycling off,
it feels as if someone had turned everything off for the night, the whole town,
and left us there, forgotten
without any smiling banter to define our
snowy-evening, holiday-time, shopkeeper and patron relationship -
we look at each other, a little uneasily,
like meeting in the morning in the kitchen, in daylight, finding a glass of water
after a one-night stand
well, hello, how are you -

the real me, and the real you -

we all laugh, a little awkwardly,
and the good-looking young man starts the music back up
and the girl begins to re-arrange the counter, and rinse things out in the sink, and
I remember my bags, and wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and push the wooden door open -

I step down onto the brick sidewalk, already covered
in a light layer of snow, and the wind
blows snowflakes down into my bags, and straight into my face and eyes, and also
down into my collar, making
cold little kisses on my neck -
I walk away from the shop, and
into the intimate darkness.

Card #45

Two more children, foster, or adopted. A little older, like 5 or 7 or 9 or 11 years old, maybe some medical issues. A girl, named Liberty. Another girl, or maybe a boy, I don't know, and I don't know the name. College, paid for, for all four kids. Little bit bigger house just so each kid has their own room. Or our house with enough of an addition to achieve that.

School. An accelerated program. A nursing degree. To complement the social work and public health practice. I could get in 30 years of public health care. Maybe some international work for a few years, with Matt, with him doing sanitation systems, me the basic health care and education, in someplace that really needs it, before we're too old.

That's what I would do with my million.

Hey

Why you make me wait so long?

Huh? Why is that?

Why you do that, Ruby. Just, why?

Untitled

By the time
its November I will
be all over it, be all over
you I will hang up the hang ups. You can
talk to the crows. I can take
some walks in the early morning
when every cobweb
is silvered with damp
when the fog socks it all in
and by the time
mists are excited by sunrise
stirring and then streaming
off the water
rising into chimneys
I'll be more than fine. I'll be
solidly November. Damp leaves, rotty smells,
cool air steamy sweat, shivering with wet. I'll be
running. I'll be breathing hard. My chest
will burn my heart
will pound I'll kick into the dirt. I'll be
out of the weeds and into the woods. I'll be
socks and warm soup
after a cold hard rain. A rain
all day. I'll be the last of the asters in an
old valley cemetery. Pincushion moss. Stone
epithets, both sets of dates: born, died.
I'll be the cadaver. I'll be
the solid grey sky. I'll be the
crunchy brown oak leaves
all over you
more than fine
by the calendar
inevitably

until the month after that. And after that. and
after that. and after that too.

You can talk to the crows.