Not Unwelcome, Not Unwieldy

Winter turkeys. A new way of experiencing fatigue. How shall we repent and how shall we explain it to others?

Voices rising in song. A crow circling the farm, the blind horse tilting its head as if to better hear the passing wings. Snow does not begin in the sky yet it seems to, we say it does, and this mostly works.

Morning meetings. Fragments of Sappho reminding us that eventually history erases everything. Working one’s way through a difficult text, sentence by sentence, taking notes as they go.

Deer coming up from the river, crossing into the pasture, grazing its far corners, far from the horses. The skull reminds us we are going to die, not that something endures. Polishing amethyst.

I remember Kathy’s wire figures, art she was making in the summer of 1988, several of which she gave me after drunk but not unwelcome, not unwieldy sex. Our hands age first? My grandfather makes a quiet sound in me these days, a ghost clearing its throat.

You see, whatever “it” is, it cashes out in this experience, leaving you with the pedestrian question: what works? We talk about what it means to do a thing we aren’t sure we’re allowed to do without asking consent first, the burden it places on others without their consent. Old feelings recaptured.

At a late juncture a new writing project. Christmas cacti blossoms, my heart opening like a silk parachute floating alone through the cosmos.