Distance

That row of houses splits
sky from water as a thought divides
a moment into a memory.
The space between the trees
is for the fox to slip between
and the area around the fox
is for the trees and wind to fill.
Clouds weigh on average
about five elephants, and all
around them is weightless.
There is always room for more.
The American Promise. Here,
even clouds can’t just be themselves,
we must see ourselves in them.
All those molecules are eyes, nose, lips,
just the right proportions, to be us.

Last night, I filled the openness
of our living room with a Bengal tiger.
It wasn’t enough to have the space
around the sofa and cold television.
In its pace, there was more detached ennui
than stalking. It floated once
through the ottoman and a pile of books,
unable to see through its sadness
where it was going.

The distance between my face
and your face is a filter.
Apply fox eyes, and a bright burnt sienna
blaze becomes you, as an old woman shouts,
“Get out of here! You’re beautiful!”
Run. Become an atom,
the distance between clouds.

Self-Portrait as a Butterfly Leaving

The wind is he
who comes to blow away our footprints. 

    -- from Southern Bushmen’s Song

Now it is 6:47 a.m. Dark panes.
Do not check email.
I wish to stay in my cave of questions
but the bodies of trees are already visible.
Soon all my thoughts will be too.

I’ve overeaten poetry in the dark again.
Not one more nibble of a poem of love, dying,
or the sun rising over the hills as it is now,
the traitor. I once thought her free speech of fire
was only inside of me, for my growth.

Can I just stay here
in the office of butterflies,
with its memos of moss and lichen?
A good swagger of wind leaves us
staggering in the grass, caught
on tree branches. Do not mistake us.
We don’t wish to linger, but remind
as you scroll, archive, and delete,
that leaves should stay green.

Remember caterpillars, air, whole trees
full of insinuating, intimate conversations,
rumors, murmurs, susurrations.
 

Sorry-Grateful Celebration

Anything is possible when you're young. You're unaware, unknowing, unburdened. You're all Un and all in, ready to give anything a go. When I was 14 I visited the Sam Ash store on 48th street and bought a book of sheet music: All Sondheim. If I could play the Bach my piano teacher was serving up, I could master these pieces, which with my level of musical experience, looked accessible to me. I definitely bought something more embarrassing while there, a collection of songs by Asia, or maybe Kansas, hoping to appeal to some of the boys in my life then, but the Sondheim was for me. The lyrics of "The Miller's Son" spoke to my 520 year old spirit. I would take this book home, master the songs, and be the hit of the next school variety show (a daydream, since our school never did variety shows, we only put on drab choral productions).

Instead of mastering anything, I hamfisted my way through rapid key changes, chords that never seemed to resolve,  and unexpected turns of phrase. I tortured my parents with my voice full of teen misery belting out "Somebody crowd me with love/somebody force me to care." The feeling in the lyrics, humor married to sadness, all of Sondheim's acrobatic wordplay, the celebration of complicated relationships, of living, challenged me. I wanted to be able to sing the songs with experience. Play them with an agile mind and hands. Maybe even eat them. Why not? I felt consumed by them.

Sondheim was a mentor I never met. His songs carried me through my teens, and when I was a young adult, driving back and forth between college and home, I'd listen as the light switch of poetry flicked on and off and on again as I played "Someone in a Tree," or "What More Do I Need?" (hear the lovely pneumatic drill!) over and over. Those cassettes wore thin and twisted, and eventually melted in the car. I felt I was an artist then. I felt I was musical.  I felt I had potential as I bounced back and forth between school and the upright piano of home, where I returned to open up that sheet music and feel the exhilaration of language, rhythm, internal rhyme, and the complicated narratives of living.

Last night Twitter was alive with Sondheim memories, and Dan read me a few of the letters he wrote back to fans. I regret not having written him a letter. Why didn't I? I just gobbled up his music, and marveled at his brilliance, and took everything for granted, and everything I could from him as a teacher, and I never thanked him. 

My piano is out of tune now. This morning in the dark I pulled All Sondheim out of the piano bench, and opened it up to find the binding all botched, the pages shuffled so the lyrics of "Another Hundred People" mash up with "Send in the Clowns" to read this celebration:

Some come to stare/some to stay/

something for everyone/ a comedy tonight!

 

Woeman in the Wierld

Woeman in the Wierld

I shared this filmlet a few months ago at a professional development session. It took me way too long to make this (I fretted for months over what to share), and I was told I was brave, and that it was abstract, and then we were onto the rest of the professional development day of planning with educators. 

I feel better about it thanks to my friend Natalie, who wasn't part of that session, but later saw it projected on a shower curtain screen in the Wunderbarn and had kind things to say about the kind of bravery it takes to show process.

It is a poem of process. All of it. Life.

Thanksgiving

This morning, fog strikes  
even the centuries-old trees dumb.
There is nothing tender,
no great humility about my face anymore.
Was there ever?
At this hour, I love only words
that spark in air like filaments
of spider webs, wise as rooftops,
healthy as shadows on the wall.
I’m unworthy of whatever spills
out of this anthill, I know that much.
Prayer, gratitude, tears —
years brief and long,
a mist tightened around
my remembering.

Customer Service

I’d like to return these hands, please,
thumbs a replacement of my father,
veins roiling the skin’s surface belong to my grandmother.
My mother’s mount of Venus softness
doesn’t fit me yet, and the fingernails
keep growing as if I am already dead.
Finally, what I’ve always wanted,
I can polish them to a high gloss, but don’t.
I like the little space that opens near
the base of my thumb by the wrist
as if it were made for salt.

When I cover my ears with these hands
I hear the ocean. Is that normal?

It’s not a renunciation, I just want a refund.
No, not a refund, an acknowledgement
that my ancestors play “Pile on the Living”
and have the best laugh as I prove I am
pretty and stupid, petty and wise,
happy and angryugly as I reach
and grab, a garish consumer
approaching the checkout.

How Do I Write A Poem (O, The God Of It All)

about the fool and her robes

above the precipice with her dancing dog

across a vista no one can see

after the sun has turned ash white

against the yellow sky, which is

at noon, perhaps, or very early

before two in the morning when

below all sweet snoring and

between the folly of humanity

by the frenzied snail of dream images, oh

for what? How do I write a poem

from the edge of the escarpment

in this state of delirium, nullity,

into words that signify what you see

of the world, without knowing how you feel

on the bindle of language, the relationship of this word

to that word, the feather in your cap fed

up 

with the gaud of it all.

The River of Free Flowing Fear

 When I'm in a state of dread, I organize. I am not known for my excellent organizational skills, but when confronted with a dreaded medical procedure, my house gets sorted. Fear kicks me into a state of high level focus for the things I have put off. It forces me to take on tasks I wouldn't ordinarily pursue. If I'm feeling vulnerable, I take back control by rearranging the pantry, setting up shelves in the basement, getting shoes off the mudroom floor and into their own individual cubbies, and clearing areas that are piled up with the hodgepodge of life. 

I think I have an amicable enough relationship with fear, but I don't want to hang out in a constant state of it. First of all, it's costly in a couple of ways. I bought a shelving unit, banker's boxes, and one morning while dreaming of a tidier and cozier living room, I added a sectional sofa to my virtual cart as if we have unlimited funds. Constant fear and anxiety build up in my body. My lower back ached from all the uprightness. I think I can even blame my hip pain last week partially on this dread inside me, which cranked up my gears of impatience with myself, and resulted in the injury.

What was I dreading? A routine colonoscopy, the award you win for reaching your fifth decade of life. My husband went for his two weeks before me, and I was his wide-eyed guide and support, taking mental notes on the preparation, participating in the fasting required the day before the procedure to see how that felt and also offer some solidarity (who wants to eat in front of a loved one who is fasting?), and taking on the role of "required driver." I worried about him in the waiting room, keeping my eye on the board that announces what phase patients are in like a departures and arrivals board at an airport. I was relieved when I saw he was done, and as he was coming out of his "magical space nap," he had the presence of mind to crack a classic Dan joke that was a play on the word polyp. "What do you get at the end of a colonoscopy? A lollypolyp."

Even though I knew what to expect, and the overall procedure, it didn't keep me from worry. What if I never wake up? What if I'm just a walking sack of colon lumps? What if I'm allergic to the magical space nap, or Miralax, Dulcolax, or Pedialyte? I joked I was going to run away. Seeing everything, knowing I'd likely be fine, was not enough to keep me from wondering, worrying, and dreading, because I didn't know how it would feel.

So I set up candles in the bathroom for the evening of my prep, and had my favorite guilty pleasure reading material handy. Why not make it cozy, right? I busied myself with farm chores, and household upkeep. I followed the procedure, which I won't bore you with here, the likes of which we refer to as The Brown Detour. Then I set my alarm for 3 a.m. for "round two"of timed swill guzzling followed by reading in the candlelit loo.

Tired, but having survived the prep, I did some yoga, showered, and we headed to the hospital. I had my outfit all ready. My husband asked, "You're going to wear those boots?" Yes. They are my favorite shoes. They make me feel like I know where I'm going, even when I don't.

I just completed training for Artists in Healthcare Settings. During Dan's visit, I got the waiting area perspective. There were a few photos that were easy to ignore in the waiting area (the TV dominated), and some children's art in praise of healthcare workers during the pandemic. I saw little to soothe the patient in the hallways or entryway, or anything that actively engaged those waiting for loved ones.

In my post-op room yesterday, there was a large, framed color photograph of a female purple finch. I kept my gaze on it as my IV was inserted, and when I needed to self-soothe. It helped me so much, this photograph that I'd probably not pay too much attention to in any other environment. The rest of the room and the hallway I had full view of was a sensory overload of beeps, alarms, sterile machines, chat about patients and routines. I overheard two nurses discussing a woman in labor and thought, "Oh! Someone is just starting their life today!" and I felt so much happier but totally overwhelmed by the feeling of being older mixed with that joy that I burst into tears. I didn't want that to be translated into fear, because it wasn't, and I didn't have the presence of mind to explain it, so I got it together before another nurse arrived. I would have liked to continue crying. It felt good.

I did not enjoy wheeling into the room where the procedure was done. It was devoid of art, and more like a set for a sci-fi movie, all monitors and glaring lights, and unknown and unexplained devices. My IV was connected to a drip of magical sleep juice, I was given a mask with oxygen, and when the doctor entered, I was told that would be their cue to start the drip. I'd smell something fruity, perhaps, and drift off. I closed my eyes, listening to my elevated heart rate on the monitor, my nose begging for fruity sniffs, and when I smelled the anesthesia, I thought, "It's happening." Then I was out, off, over, to wherever it is you go when you're given anesthesia.

I woke up, and said the word "spacey" about a dozen times. I felt like my mind was returning from having been on the moon. I felt floaty, not a bad headspace, but still eager for the booted feet of my mind to touch the Earth. When they did, I was given apple juice and the result everyone wants: colon as empty as a French Horn, and as musical as one for the rest of the day, too.

I am not a walking sack of polyps. I was not allergic to anything. I woke up. I survived. I don't need to return for another ten years. My dread and fear were replaced with relief, for now. I had the overwhelming desire to call my mother, and tell her I'm ok, and for us to share a laugh about the pregnancy test I was given before the procedure. 

When I return at 62 I will not get that test, but someone will be born that day in the very same building, their spirit in full float, then touching down as a fresh explorer in a new world.

Not So Funyun

We made a trip to Sam's Club yesterday, two initiates into the highgarglorum of big box wonderstores. Dan got us a membership when he saw the price of butter. We go through a lot of butter, flour, and eggs with our home baking business, Sunflour. The portal to bulk buying opened wide, and swallowed us.

It's way too easy to lose your favorite human in a big box superstore, with racks stacked almost to ceiling height with Pampers and Stove Top stuffing. While my interest was in produce, Dan was a bumblebee among, where was he now, sushi? Entertaining crackers? After losing him twice, I suggested we explore every aisle. We needed a tactic: Know the layout. Stay focused. A list was imperative for shopping here. As are your own bags, which we learned the hard way.

Produce was large quantities of white grapes that looked as if they were pumped full of steroids, and hefty sacks of untrustworthy, swarthy looking lettuces. The mushrooms looked fine, as did some bags of apples, and asparagus.

We wandered the entire store filled with seven foot televisions, Christmas gaud, fat shiny tins of holiday cookies made with coconut oils (I wanted some but no), and enough office supplies for several large corporations. The savings on frozen foods, if you have a large family, is significant. It makes it worth shopping there on the regular. But we are not a large family, so while it's impressive I can walk out of the store with four 16 oz. pouches of frozen broccoli for 6.48, I don't have the space to spare for that much broccoli at once.

 I did get three 5 ct. packs of banker's boxes for 2.71 each that will help me organize the prop room, and a couple of new toilet brushes that came with a warranty I passed on at the checkout.

The checkout attendants took everything out of our cart for us, and then put it back in, unbagged, so we were left to our own devices to pack and unpack a car full of hodgepodge -- 90 ct. flats of eggs, flaps of cheese, banker's boxes, butter. On the way out of the store, another attendant scanned our receipt and a few items in our cart to make sure they matched. No stealing from the Waltons! Then we were on our way to swearing the kitchen walls blue as we crammed an inflated bag of tortilla chips into our tiny pantry. 

On the wall above the checkout scanners was a quote from Helen Walton that rang up as hollow as a 9.25 oz. bag of Funyuns: "It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you lived." 

 

Pain and Professional Vanity

I'm pretty sure I have an anterior labral tear, and the root cause is professional vanity. The pain was so intense last night I got anxious which started involuntary shuddering in my legs. I felt lightning bolts when I sat, moved laterally, or bent over, and a peal of shattered glass when I leaned against the kitchen counter. It didn't begin like this. It's been gradual. There's been overall tightness in the hip flexors, which I've tended to with yoga. Yesterday, I had slight pain in the morning during my practice.

The day before yesterday, I was eager to jump back into practicing "The Six Hoop Box," which has been out of my regular rotation of practice, and I like to use it in performances. I tested it out with success. Not just success, but I did a half turn while the hoop was still rotating on my left foot. Which means the leg was outstretched in front of me, then to the side, and then behind. I was using every lateral rotator I think. Did I warm up enough? Nope. I had just finished the usual practice, and was moving into the "play time" period of practice where I tinker with new ideas, or challenge myself, or rework sequences I like to keep in regular rotation.

Now I am doing this move: prone. I cannot sit. I cannot go up steps. I am in one position, with a bag of frozen mixed vegetables on my hip, this laptop on my thighs, wondering how I am going to manage a 1 p.m. meeting when I should not be in bed.

The pain I feel is also deeply connected to my aging and the athletic part of my profession, which I believe may be starting its last, slower twirls like a coin spun on a table. I've been feeling this for a long while, looking for a direct sign. I may have given myself the direct sign by injuring myself "trying to keep up." My own vanity and ego are doing me in. I want to keep up, I love what I do. I love the personal challenges, the proof that I am not only capable but have become quite accomplished at something athletic and very physical, the look of surprise and delight from audiences, the attention my reply of "I'm a circus performer" gets when I respond to the question "What do you do?" 

What a pain it will be to let that all go one day, and maybe also a relief.

How To Take Candy From Strangers: A Style Guide

One Year and Under

Your adult caregiver will dress you as the world's most adorable ghost, dinosaur, or pumpkin. You will be strolled along the sidewalk to the oohs and ahhs of all. Sure you have no grasping skills yet, and a full set of teeth is still a dream, but the adults will fill up a sack on "your behalf."

Two to Five

If you're anything like me, and I know I am, you'll end up the sidekick to your sibling. Wear that chicken costume well, vamp it up, and steal the show. Your method for candy grabs is "Polite Random." You're still learning the etiquette from your elders. Pinch a single treat between your thumb and pointer finger, look up at the giver, and when they purl "You can take more than one," DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR PARENTS. Just go for it. A full skill crane grab.

Six to Twelve

You have an obligation now to be entertaining. It's a lot of work, because it was going to be good and now it's all ruined because your chicken sister is stealing the show with her clucking at everyone and what have you got? A plaid shirt and a cowboy hat. Whatever. Let the chicken do the work, and while she's vamping, you can sift through the proffered candies like you're looking for a very important government document. You're no longer a cowboy, you're counter-intelligence. You've been contracted for this job, it's important. Don't just get any candy. Get the RIGHT candy, and bring it back to headquarters. If you screw up, trade it for "better information."

Thirteen and Up

No one knows what your costume is supposed to be, just like they don't understand your poetry, your drawings, or your slang. Everything is just the way you want it.  You've been practicing and working your way up to this moment. All you have to do is amble over, mumble "What's up" or some version of a greeting, and since it's later in the prescribed Trick-or-Treat timeline, you can pretty much take whatever you want. This is your night, you're the CEO of Halloween. It's why you wore your backpack, instead of bringing a pillowcase or one of those plastic Jack-o-Lanterns.

Tip for the Middle Aged and Up Givers

When you run out of your puny candy bars, wear the empty colander on your head. Instant costume! You're a conspiracy theorist concerned about harmful gamma rays, but you're not stupid. You bought a whole bag of peppermint patties for later, just for yourself.

 

I Don't Know What To Say

It's Halloween and I'm listening to Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here." I'm often off-season, off kilter, and/or not on the right track. Today, spirits haunt like arpeggios. They rollick. This morning the sunlight welled up on the ends of each blade of grass, the chicken wire of the duck run, and the needles of the moping white pine. It doesn't want to hold the hose, but has been tasked to do so. A chore tree.

What to say? So much happens here. There's a new kitten being fed daily but avoiding human touch. The sheep and goats love the new addition of hay to their diet now that grazing is less, the firewood is all stacked (some of the logs were filled with carpenter ants), and whatever this weed is by my window has turned all golden with rust spots, like an old apple.

I've read two books in the course of a few days. There are projects to work on, and here I am listening to "Auld Lang Syne" on October 31st. It's all in the timing, right? I've completed so much training and taken so many classes lately I need to update my resume. My resume keeps me occupied with its needy insistence that I am not enough.

I desire to be left alone, and I also want to be noticed. I guess that's the best I can say for now.

The Homes of Objects

I can't find the three hole punch, and that is unusual. It's one of the many thousands of objects I have in my visual memory as living inside a filing cabinet, resting on a shelf, or on the dining room table near the paper cutter. It is in none of those places, and I need it for my "Teaching Clown" chapters which are printed out, and for which I found a three ring binder, which was in precisely the place I remembered -- a box filled with three ring binders up in the Crow's Nest.

In the Crow's Nest, inside of the zippered front pocket of a suitcase, is a rhinestone applicator. There are two plastic squeaky pig toys on the bottom shelf of the cabinet in my writing room. If you want the grapefruit spoon, it's either in the slot with the regular spoons in the cutlery drawer, or with the sporks just below it. One of two 30 gallon rubbermaid containers lives under the stairs of the greenhouse. If you need a stick for your marshmallow roasting it's in the cabinet with all the collanders ("bowls with holes"). There are a few notes from Helen to me when she was eight years old in with the loose buttons inside the ceramic bowl with lid that she made when she took pottery classes. That bowl is on the upper right shelf in my writing room next to a stack of books that are resting on their backs in a jenga-like stack.

Writing about this has brought no order to my house, which is expanding with items both large and small, just like the map inside my brain which I rather pride myself on, not for the accrual of "stuff of a life," but for my ability to recall exactly where it is located. And on that map, somewhere deep in the Swamps of Lostness, is my missing three hold punch.

Backstage

Don’t worry, spiders,

I keep house

    casually. 

                - Issa

Yesterday, while eating a quick lunch of ramen soup "shooshed up" with garden vegetables and a dash of chili oil, a gentle knock came to the kitchen door. Helen looked at me, and we shared a mild panic. "Who is that?" Dan stood up and opened the door a crack, and partway up the steps stood two women. "We're here to pick up an order of cinnamon buns."

Dan laughed and said, "Ah! How did you get past my camera alerts? We usually get a notice when someone is here." He abandoned his soup, thrust feet into boots and was out the door helping them in no time. Lunch is almost always, without fail, interrupted by a customer.

Helen and I stayed to slurp up noodles. It was rainy, and we'd already been out in it a number of times, getting thwacked in the face by the sodden mulberry, or slipping in duck goo. It was unseasonably chilly. The soup was just right.

"How did they even find their way to the kitchen entrance?" I wondered. Helen posited that they walked through the barn. We'd left the door open to the path, which means they went through the disaster of a prop room, where art supplies and theatre props are piled. Then they had to walk up the mangled path, where jutting bricks make a challenge even for the surest of feet. The fig and mulberry meet to combine a low soggy arch on rainy days, which if you aren't paying attention, will lick you in the face and leave your hair all combed with leafy bits. They worked through obstacles to get to our porch.

What was the prize for making it all that way? They saw all our coffee cans filled with rotting scraps for the compost heap, a muddy array of boots and shoes, an entire closet of plaid coats, pants, and rain gear hanging on hooks, a filthy rag dangling on the banister to dry (not working well on this day). Then, a few surprised faces sitting around a kitchen table.

While we are used to visitors to the farm stand and the barn theatre, we are not accustomed to people knocking on our kitchen door. I felt exposed.

All the coffee cans filled with banana peels and eggshells, loose boards, undusted surfaces, were seen by the audience. Not to mention the cast of maladroit insects we're too lazy to kick out.

 

 

Puppet Characters in Third Grade Classrooms

It's the end of the teaching season for me, and as usual, things are just getting good. For one of the programs I work in I've been with the students each week or two over the course of the full school year. We've done many projects, and the third graders are finishing up with lessons in puppetry. We built puppets with found objects, and this week we began exploring the characters they created. I conducted some improvised interviews with their puppets this week to get the character development underway, and these are a few gems:

Joe Joeington, a "regular Joe", 28, worked in business eight years, willing to work for $20 per day (even with extra hours, loads of paperwork, and weekend hours). He's bringing his best friend, "Hungry Bear" to the company picnic. Can't wait!

Shelly, a Miss American pageant queen, who makes her own casual rainbow belts, has an agent (Tom) who insists she wear her fancy costume everywhere. She wishes she could just wear her casual clothes. She donated her winnings to the homeless, and bought some groceries.

Dr. Joe, a robot doctor/dentist/game console. He treats everyone who programs him well, but sometimes he gets confused. He once tried to pull a tooth from a patient who just wanted to play a game, and the patient jumped out a window. Don't worry, it was just the first floor.

Kelly, a librarian who runs storytime in the Kids Zone part of the library. She's had a love of books her whole life, and got into the library business through a friend who lost a job.

The Clown Monster lives in her garden with her bee friends and all her flowers, who are also her friends.

Frank, friend of Anthony the accordion dog, lives in a party house. He likes to read, and parties are constant. His favorite thing to do is swing on the swing outside, and it somehow makes him angry when parties stop, even though he likes to read and it's hard to read with the parties going on all the time.

McClaren, British rock star who never travels. His largest audience was two million puppets, where he sang that famous song of his. I asked McClaren to sing it for us, and he hummed a few bars. It was catchy, so I joined in.

For a Young Writer

Today I received an email from a high school student who had some questions about the writing life.

How do you gain inspiration and motivation to write?

My motivation and inspiration are directly connected to discipline. I get up very early to write, and write every single day. Even if what is coming from me that day is pure drek, I write. I write with no particular expectations, and if it turns out to be good, well then so much the better. If it's not, then I hope I get the chance to wake up again tomorrow and try again.

Do you enjoy this profession?

Yes. What fascinates me about it the most is the play of language. I enjoy playing with words the same way a musician plays with rhythm, or a welder "plays" with heat. The right words, in the right order can connect people through shared feeling and experience, create change, make someone fall in love, or out of love. Words have power. I'm not particularly power hungry, but I know words are meaningful, and they matter.

What are some challenges to expect in this career?

Doubt. Fear. I'm a poet, and a playwright, and I can say that the challenges in this field are that of most creative careers. Watch out for egos getting in the way of your work (your own, and those of others). Getting work published can be like trying to win the lottery. Be persistent, and have a tough outer shell. It's ok for work to come back rejected. It happens to all writers. Send it out again when you're ready. Edits are necessary for you to grow as a writer. Pay is abysmal for poetry and plays, so if you're wanting to make your living at creative writing, write in many forms and be prepared to send work out a lot. Write all of the time, and learn from everyone you possibly can. Go to readings, classes, support your fellow writers.

Would I recommend becoming a professional creative writer?

We have to start with what "professional creative writer" means here. Does it mean published? Paid by the word? Article? I suspect it's a combination, as our culture appreciates and recognizes those things as marks of success. I recommend following what fascinates you, learning as much about it as you possibly can, paying attention to those who went ahead of you on that path, and helping those who are trying to get to where you are. Be curious, supportive, encouraging, and say yes to opportunities when they arise. See where that curiosity, determination, and dedication leads you.

Brevity

The editorial scythe is brisk today, smile-slicing through words before I even write them. "Believe that you have something to say that is worthwhile," is a handwritten note I keep above my desk. To the right of that one is another note on a smaller piece of paper: "When it doubt, kick something over."

That is my process, for the most part.

Self-Portrait at 52

Hex of snow I pluck,
lattice of lines I live with,
and this body, Saturnalian,
still rises at 5 a.m.
A quick jerk, upright
each minute the last minute
in this hollow hour.
Bees spark inside me,
and stones moss over,
the entrance shaded.
There’s less to say now.
I see.

Romayne's Game

 My grandmother fans a deck of cards across the table and back again. She plays with the standard Hoyle Pinochle deck. The back of each card is printed in red ink with images of Neptune emerging from a shell. She cuts the deck in half, taps it against the table, then brings each stack to touch at the corners, her thumbs guiding the flipping cards to sift together. Cobalt veins bulge in my grandmother’s hands, map up the length of her bare forearm. After sliding all of the cards back in line, she taps a perfect, frosted fingernail of pointer finger on the top of the deck.

It is summer. A small glass of pale beer waits for my grandmother’s sip. The door to the apartment is open to the shouts of the landlords kids who are playing a lazy game of two-kid football on the lawn outside. Their little dog, Tannie, yips, leashed to her doghouse in the wooded grove by the salon. It is warm and humid. I can feel my hair expand. The waistband of my shorts cuts into my belly as I peel off the top layer of a licorice Allsort with my bottom teeth.

I am finally learning how to play pinochle. Romayne’s game. This is it. I’ll be an adult. No longer relegated to games of Uno or Go Fish, or simply watching from my spot on the floor as cold cuts are passed, and laughter fills the room above me.

Romayne cuts the deck, snaps the edges down hard, sifts them together. She lights a Parliament, dragging deeply through pursed lips, then on the exhale begins to explain the two-player rules.

I hear a lot of words that are new to me: trump, meld, trick. There are classes of suits, and assignations of points for certain cards. I don’t write anything down. If my grandmother gets this, so will I. We are soulmates.

I suck the nonpareil off of a jellied Allsort as she deals. The cards brush onto the table like waves against sand. My grandmother has become Neptune, welding her trident of cigarette, describing “melding the dix” and “declaring out.” My brain buzzes with sugar. Numbers blur with hearts, and I mistake a club for a spade.

It’s not time yet. I’m still too young, but she doesn’t say so. She simply rises out of the waters of the game and we shift to Uno, or Skip-Bo, or Go Fish. Games where I live for the giddy power of Reverse.

The Take Off Your Glasses Game

I took off my glasses and invited Dan to a sexy, middle aged game, "What do you see when you take off your glasses?" When mine come off, the world is coated in a film. All lines blur. Definition disappears. 

"I can still read that Farms and Food sticker on the fridge, and I know that says Fridgedaire," he said. 

For me, the sticker is a green rectangle. Words erase. Dan's face becomes a thief in a pantyhose mask.

I'm not sure who gets the most points. Do you win for being able to read and discern detail, or gain points for impressionism?

If survival were key here, Dan would win. I'd be eaten by the skulking leopard I mistook for an ottoman.