Black cat approaches the porch,
up the steps, deliberate
one at a time
glaring her yellow eyes.
I’m on her love seat in the sun
and she’s not happy.
Just yesterday I watched
as she pawed at a garter snake,
first she retreating, then the snake,
a stand-off I thought, who would
win?
When I came back she was chewing
on its carcass.
Don’t mess with the black cat
who knows her turf.
Well I made my trek from April to October
We’re on the other end of the lake
when one of the boat’s engines
loses oil pressure. Now what was
a half-hour ride across the water
could take three times as long
going back.
But a gentler journey at least allows
me to lay out on the bow staring up
at stars peeking through soft light pollution.
That’s the handle of the Big Dipper there
and I think the bright one above is Polaris,
the North Star. Lord, I need some guidance.
I got stories colliding like cosmic events
because it’s rare that we ever meet people
at clean breaks between the chapters.
Every page turn could pull the main plot
forward or introduce a stellar twist
to drive meaning and message home.
It’s too easy to outright dismiss
what doesn’t seem possible at the moment,
easy to preemptively give up
when failure is all you’re used to.
So I want you to imagine yourself
lying under these stars with me.
What’s your favorite song? Favorite book?
What makes you laugh? What makes you cry?
Let’s embrace in a hammock for two
or read side-by-side in a gazebo.
Let’s take a dip in lapping lakewaters,
let’s go out on a long, long walk together.
Life is for living so you have to be ready
to seize it when it’s happening for you
or you wake up years later like what happened?
I got stories still teaching new ways of being
and stars to illuminate the darkest nights.
All that’s left now is turning to the next page.
You know life has reached a new low
when your only emergency contact
is the county courthouse.
A sticky summer night,
pale ales flowing from branded
tents like water, my Dad, Andrew,
Logan and myself all drinking,
folding ourselves into our social shapes.
I am in my moth eaten guise
of charm. Carrying on and cutting up,
letting my spirit dance across
a few spare jokes, faltering.
Something calls to me
from the stage. I want to abscond
to the woods in drag. Forage a new scene
with the same love. Find friendship in my
foolish company.
The earth turns completely, and we are here today.
Watching As You Like It,
slightly drunk, and crunched
up into sticky green benches,
summer dusk descending on us,
our shoulders, our plastic stacks of empties.
It is just one more thing
I think
will make our life complete
maybe even
perfect
I am a tulip
Made of Dutch root and bullshit
A fleeting season
Of beautiful relevance
Speculation rife and rich
