Settle
feeling
1. a Saturday spent shopping for a just perfect vase
to put on the dinette to hold wildflowers just picked
from the yard, the barn, the creek, or the woods
2. calling around town to find a new primary care
physician who will take my overstretched insurance
because my doctor discovered I moved
3. my mother’s voice on the phone while I order
iced coffee from the little drive thru hut at the gas station
on the far end of town, the one I go to because
its a mom and pop shop and the barista knows my name
4. the sea breeze on my cheeks when I skip town
to get a break from all the labor and late nights
sorting through saddles and trailers and long to do lists
5. removing you from all places you could find me,
the profiles and exercise pages and emergency
contacts lists, your existence a list of numbers
I’ll pretend I don’t have memorized
6. bidding my coworkers a goodnight and saying
I’m heading home in reference to my trailer
rather than the state of Kentucky
7. falling asleep, wrapped up in sage green,
and staying still the whole night, not an inkling
of shifting, of tossing and turning, just me
and my dreams and the quiet