Finding the Fulcrum

Today's coffee in yesterday's mug. Sipping the colder mornings means finding the fulcrum between crisp relief and the coming frost. Staring through glass at that which will wither soon. Stroking my hair: God, I hate when I cut it.

Food is stored in the bathroom shower off the kitchen because there is no pantry. Maybe some day a kitchen with a pantry; this and other dreams that counsel through long, pending winters. For the cook who would rather be cooked for, the kitchen is a hearth of loyalty – a place of commitment and sacrifice and dutiful offering. At times, a noose. And at others, a tainted swale of creativity and benevolence. Every meal, every day, I construct polders and other contrivances. Please don't eat rice, okay? The arsenic levels are too high. Quinoa will get the job done.

The humidity has broken and in the screaming brilliance of luminance one could almost cower. Pacing the stepping stones in and out of mottled light a thought presents a successive unfolding – where are we now?

Maybe lasagna tonight, maybe my mother's goulash. All days are dictated by the other's needs. The dog cries for food in the morning and the flowers need water. The husband invites a wife into his half of the bed. The children need shoes or a saxophone repair or a snack. A friend asks to have wine at sunset in the room of windows. My self-sense is revealed in the community of selves. Is this a choice? This and other ways to map the interior of the collective.

The days that readers don't read. The letters writers don't send. The way August both pulls long like taffy yet is eagerly consumed. This is how sentences beg.

bees
satellite the pine
in and out of sunlight's favor –
I watch what I cannot touch
I touch what cannot be seen