justwrite 14 february

it’s a scary view but the truth is useless when it’s so cold there’s nothing to hold onto and the storm drain remains the last best hope a ditched effort a cleft chin a swimming sin and a just-after-eating reflection collecting the best minutes of the day and making a sandwich with beans and cheese and freezing the yogurt until it’s almost too late to swim in that quarry again there are no hands to hold it’s been ten years since this clear of an evening dawned as if such a thing were possible and it’s all been disposable reclosable but not resealable everything is leaking out by little bits the drips and the wonders through the mirrors the reflections collecting in pools where fools on occasion slip in and look for a new face finding an older one looking back a counteractive measure a treasure worth mailing away we have learned and we have earned interest but I am going to sleep alone and there’s plenty to atone for and all that could have been done all that’s ever been lost and a salad too-much tossed in the wind because today it’s even icier the barbeque spice is dicier and the cabbage plays along obediently pretending with me that this is delicious and not just nutritious we are taking our turns with bows and how we need that feedback and we attract attention of not the right sort look I will help you look I will tell you how you ought to maybe and when it’s time for you to save me it’ll be too late this is not the kind of writing I’d like to be doing right now and so I’ll switch I’ll scratch some other itch what I’d like to write about is the sound in the hallway at a certain morning point when the stairwell door open and four paws of longish nails scatter down the hall toward my door across from which a family of cats occasionally rests and as this wet nose tests the grounds to make sure all’s in order the man by the door is calling back good boy good boy there are no problems now good boy and I am thinking about going to sleep because all is fine now there are no problems good girl good girl time to go for a walk and this morning walking across a field the sound of birds the sudden shaking-out of an occasional sheet tossing blackbirds out into the sun then returning to oblivion and allowing them to settle into unexpected trees dressed for winner and weary with waiting even in the sun