It’s taken almost a full day 

for me to come to grips 

with the buzzing in my belly. 

I don’t know what it is 

but it’s a reminder I’m not 

dead yet anyway. 

I think it had something 

to do with the big storm 

last night that cut our power. 

As I laid dormant beneath much fleece, 

I had trouble counting blessings 

because little terrors kept flying in 

like cows and trailers in a tornado. 

I thought about comets, potato recipes, 

and wondered why that fancy office 

chooses to smell like urinal cakes. 

I gave thanks for my working legs 

which I test now and again by 

walking to where there’s more tea 

and I bemoaned the lack of humility 

in youth sports – parents anyway. 

I asked myself how I could make the most 

of each day as I whipped through 

another game of Words With Friends. 

I feel like this is life in-between. 

I’m not stuck in the past but 

I’m not too ambitious about the future.

You look exactly like the galaxy on a foggy night, he said. 

She could only agree and wish for clarity. 

He talked and she heard horses. 

She spoke and he saw a generous mouth. 

Their song was only slightly less grating than a carousel. 

They couldn’t stop going round and round. 

Her hands longed to reach across the table. 

He tapped the table impatiently waiting… 

They were as close to joy as they’d ever be but didn’t think it could 

come on a Tuesday.

Most days are an inelegant, 

sleepy, grasping attempt 

at existing 

where there are 

coordinates and a sun 

to mark us our spot in the universe. 

We choose very little 

except where to put our arms 

as we dance.

Today’s song is hushed- 

almost to the point I can’t hear it. 

Morning’s mist throws a veil over my eyes. 

My body is hungry for something 

I’ve not yet imagined. 

Memory and fantasy are a muddled soup. 

I’m aging like a rusty post holding up a circus tent.

I like the idea that 100 years ago, 

he sat at his table and carved 

a nonsense beast and people 

exclaimed, “it’s an illusion” 

but he knew it was a self portrait. 

I follow the lines of his anguished face 

and hunched posture and I imagine 

smoothing my hand over his 

as he put down the tools and block 

with the imprint of his inner demon 

in relief for all to see. I know, 

I would like to tell him, how that feels. 

And he may turn to me and see 

nothing and say, this is us inside.