praise: little snowman

when my husband was was two years old
he took the laundry powder
and spread it all around him on the floor

of the house.

he beamed up 

at his dismayed mother

and said: 'Look! I made snow."

waste: losing

I knock things over.
Dishes slip out of my hands
and break against the sink.

In the past that was it,
I would break dishes
as my life broke itself
from its holding,
become clumsier,
and sigh unsurprised
as another mug bit the dust.

Now I have gone from the old
flea market cup
to your best watch
in a pretty twelve-foot dive,
blood-red nail polish,
vinaigrette,
and eggs.

Crimson polish pools cling to the floor
like blood,
brown balsamic huddles
in an oil cell by the door,
the eggs tip and mica white
holds out against the stone counter.

I have taken to admiring my work
and lean in to inspect
before setting to clear it up,
a conciliatory gesture,
the good hand shaking the clumsy one.

The phone one day soon
will ring with her last breath,
ring itself right off the wall.

A fine mess.

i stepped in

on a return to the beloved west; to its wildflowers, rocks, and glaciers, i wound switchbacks around my waist, tiptoed past a mountain goat, wove a hand through small waterfalls, and smoothed over fields. this was where the flowers pressed together and hushed among the grass, making my feet into antelope feet, my eyes into a low-flying bird's. i came into a gentle slope of valley and gaped at the way the glacier slung like an arm into its little lake, gave birth to itself in water.

i began a new, naked tradition, stripping off boots and shorts and stepping in slowly, like husking corn. peeled my body into the skin of the water so cold it burrowed beyond my skin. it seemed to beam off layers of city and self, leaving what was left of the tiny core humbled and trembling. a few timid strokes and my feet came off the soft, muddy floor, and i was water borne, and wild. The cold pinched my lungs at the base, my breath quickened, but the shiver was singular and deep. ecstatically alive.

i always wanted to emerge new and fresh, like starting over. but often the feeling lingered as i pulled socks and shoes back on, and left with the cold. probably for the best.
after a few swims, the buzz wears off, and like in any repeated act that is seeking, when seeking turns to grasping, the desired payoff fades. we turn inward out of necessity more than out of reason.

in the city sounds, where on a good day i can hear the heartbeat tick of the changing lights, it takes a sly move to evade exhaustion's choke-hold. you have to have a place you want to go, where you can be beholden to nothing, especially yourself, and definitely where you can look up. you take in that expanse of blue, beyond the grasp of all things, and creating from that blue the water that makes the glacier, and the glacier that makes the water, you remember the mountain days and step in.

waste: Calligraphy

I catch the curve
of calligraphy on the delicate skin inside your arm

an incomplete circle,
your memory of Japan

a trace of all this time
and things that go, and then come back around.

The sun catches the red in your hair,
as it did when you leaned on the balcony
into southern light ten years ago.

I certainly don't imagine
the kiss you remember; I have forgotten it,
and how you chose her,
I have forgotten that too

and the dim soft light of the loft you shared
as I awoke to write and let the lovers sleep
and watch the minutes alone
spill like marbles across the tiles.