fair food
salty
sweet
sticky
dry
spicy
mild
the most random of assortments
and yet
every option has my mouth watering
More than anything,
I want WiFi.
I want WiFi so I can
access more than the few things
I scattered through nine hundred
square feet of newly explorable
terrain. (It’s wide open but already
I want more. Typical).
More than a small folding table,
two chairs. One typewriter.
Two small Tupperwares
of dead bugs, a modest
but growing collection.
A box labeled “china” which
in another chapter may
have meant the country
but in this one means
the fine. The breakable.
All our blooming orchids
for which I’m now solely
responsible. I consider
addressing them directly.
“Don’t die on me.”
One small suitcase with
ten days of clothes, a start
until the rest arrives.
The parts to a blender.
The parts to a food processor.
The parts to a stand mixer.
So many parts in pieces scattered
in a foreign and light-filled kitchen.
Parts that pick up from yet-another
chapter, one filled with cooking.
But not this kind of cooking.
Commerical cooking.
A sharp inhale of memory.
My arm twinges.
The intensity still on slow release
in my forever ready-to-spring body.
Flashbacks from the French
meaning to prick or sting—“Yes, yes.
I’m still here. No, I didn’t mind
waiting. Yes, it was a long hold.
Sure, I’ll check the connection.”
My relationship with water
started long before I was born.
In a warm liquid world
I formed within this
cushiony incubator
carefully guarded by
my mother’s twenty five
year old body.
My next encounter with
this life sustaining formula
would have been a bath,
where I may have felt
the familiar lack of friction
against my fresh infant skin.
From river wading to lake swimming
to the continual pull of the ocean
I am teathered by my heart to
this flowing force, each wave
a reminder of our bond to this
earth, as nourishing as my
first floating world.
KW. 6/16/23
he’ll grow inside a tree,
a blue tree, taller and
taller and tall, like
the sky, then he’ll climb
out of the tree and he
won’t have anybody
to play with him and
he’ll be sad, he’ll try
to climb up the tree
but it’s too hard, he’ll
go inside and tell
his daddy who’ll help
him climb up the tree
and he’s so happy, he’s
taller than the tree.
Between books and Netflix
Walmart throw blankets
A sound machine that mimics rain
I find myself
somewhere within a comfortable trance
you are with me
somewhere
in the kitchen
at your desk
walking down the hall yet again
You always remain even in the harshest of circumstances
And when the book ends or I forget to pay the Netflix subscription
you’ll still be there in their absence
A constant presence
Attention: please enjoy the carb packed
breakfast of
coffee &
donuts: quite an example of
Extrinsic Motivation, right? Bonus:
free tote bag! Feeling that sugar rush yet? Now
grab your seat and fill out a nametag:
Hello, my name is. First on our agenda:
Icebreakers. Next, we will read a slideshow featuring the latest
jargon followed by–we are so excited about this–a
keynote edustar who hasn’t taught for a decade but Tweets several times a day.
Lunch options: barbeque sandwich or chicken salad for our vegetarian guests. After lunch,
more jargon and
new names we invented for
old strategies because the
pedagogical pendulum does swing.
Quitting? Yes, we are in an Educational Crisis, but
remember your Why. Write it on this
sticky note.
Talk about it with your elbow partner.
Understand that we
value you as professionals (who make our jobs possible).
We hope you leave today with practical strategies (you can put them in your tote).
Extra donuts are left from breakfast (you could put a few in your tote).
You should get an email from us soon about the required August
Zoom meeting. No donuts, but we’ll spend a few hours digging into the data!
The tumor board said you need chemo,
something about “too aggressive”.
We had been so excited-
lymph noses were negative,
the margins were clear.
“pathology
concerning”
Need a
scarf?
It begins with unyielding rock,
stacked sediment, sundried till
the first smattering of rain dares
to breach and weather, break down
the vast emptiness of the smooth slab,
induce divots like footprints of water,
whorls of a Starry Night, linked
into a labyrinth of cavernous dips
worn by liquid ink, weathered by
my words, eroding stone for story.
