justwrite 8 january

When I take the temperature I find there was a phrase I wanted to use earlier sometime on the bus a fuss of words got tangled up in the disappearing landscape fogged from the window view and narrowly true just barely missing this is the face that I am kissing with closed eyes and continual surprise let me say these words and let me catch that line stuck in a tree somewhere by Stoyaniv and over the river where the swimmers do their thing on the stickyseat summer days when my father leans over and asks if I’m okay and I ask him what he’ll do if I’m not but really he means well and so do we all and so I call for an update I’m sitting here up late in my mind turning over details but it’s smooth sailing ahead or instead if you’d like something else there’s a bike out in the hallway and fast speeding away is another sort of answer and I’m just no kind of dancer so I’d rather have the truth and though it may seem quite uncouth yes I’m interested I’m beside myself with lack of sense and the past doesn’t have to be the present tense when the future’s freefalling or easygoing there’s no stowing baggage here it’s a wide and clear channel and the static too dramatic for words has heard itself out and is shouting at the breeze at the vanishing fields at the frostbitten roadsides hiding their heels in coldtired dirt the mud won’t work and the grass just won’t cut it just a rough sort of mutt it’s an afternoon gone to the evening to the dogs to the leaving and I’m wondering what you’ll say and I’m wondering how this day will end up got a full cup of tea with your name on it and plenty of wonder to spare but there in the kitchen all the missing jars of the world are unfurling their greetings of salads and beets and varenya that meets all comers with sweetsticky grins the without and within wondering again and tossing to friends these pieces of cake for let them be late let them go without supper let them color by number but always yes always yes give them the sweets for these are the guests and for them the best and by now I’m at home and can roam minus hat can sleep later than that can walk round in what I like but yes it’s much quieter and yes there’s no mumble no sweet happy tumble of children doing somesuch and the dishes clacking toward the next meal and the comings and the goings of a family that is growing in my heart and on its own as well