On The Table

Glinting strands wave and disappear in the barely breeze. Early morning is the only time bearable to be out in late September's bizarre heatwave. I walk with the heathens Sunday morning. Each street lends a theme along the way – frying sausage, cinnamon rolls, laundry in the dryer. At the park, September's potpourri fills each of the senses. Sunlight heats the last of the blooms to an earthy musk mingled with leaves already surrendered. Downy goose feathers rest in cradles of yellowing grass and resplendent beads are held over in the soaring humidity. How unexpected and happy Michigan can be!

Lately, stacks of cookbooks. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well. Woolf and other meaningful coalescing.

A red-sickle moon negating all queries. The tip-toeing girl, the night skulker, the one who gets so far away . . . she will drift if she has the chance. She will wield that scythe in harvest and in justification and when leveling the overgrowth of perception. What is incomplete lingers and then laughs at being thought of as “incomplete.” Can you imagine that kiss?

The room of windows acts like a greenhouse on these sweltering days. Dime-sized lakes pool on the houseplant leaves; I dip my my middle finger in, turn my wrist up, and taste. It's not mine to consume, but tasting is okay, yes? There is enough.

No more firefly messengers. No more phantasm chances to skinny dip in black waters. Kora nuzzles one of the last fuschia blooms and a pollen-drunk bee lumbars from the magenta cup. She snaps at it, startling at my objection. There are whole trees without leaves now, just in the last day or so. Still autumn waters show everything.

The neurologist ordered another MRI and assembled a neurosurgical team to discuss the issue. How quickly a daughter's life flickers in her mother's heart when brain surgery is on the table! “On the table” becomes a leaky, watercolor phrase, bleeding here and there until there is no stain left on the invoice. She told the doctor that her band schedule is paramount and he pointed his pen at her and said: no it isn't.

Winter showers soon enough, but today I sweat a great heat through my pores and wonder about what else I need to taste before it is no longer on the table.