In snowed all down the mountain
Pouring white flakes in late August
We left to get away from it, to get 
Ahead of the storm that was coming
We ended up eating Chinese food
And staying the night in a hotel
Instead of our tent as we’d planned

We rushed to see all of the things
That there were to see, and still,
We missed so many; the mountains
Obscured by the clouds, sun barely
Daring to show it’s face at all 

I had never seen it snow so early
The Appalachian summer heat 
Was still steeped into my bones 
From balmy to winter was a
Stunning thing; I’ve not seen
Anything quite like it since then

And I will tell you now:
I’d rather not see it snow in
August, ever again, in my life
Though I will say that it did 
Make for a good adventure

Maybe she knows I get sleepy
                                listening to her talk
about the temperature in the pool
drier balls
parking spaces 
what a new electric toothbrush                   
                               would cost divided over time.     

Even the political rants get tiresome.
Maybe for her too.   She has shifted her approach.     
               What did you do today?                      
                            What’s happening tomorrow?  

My chance to wake up
the conversation, I am thinking,
but when I try to speak, she interrupts.
              When?  How long?  How many?   
This is what she wants to know, needs to catalogue. 
Her handle on life, if you will.  

                                                                       —  thanks to Shelda Hale for the notion of catalogued days

Sans a wrong one, I suppose,
there were so many desserts that I froze,

Ice cream so cold, but sponge cake my heart chose.
A Victoria juxtaposed to macarons that were colored rose,
Too sweet a treat to oppose, with an aroma that rose all the way up to my nose.

Blueberry jam delicately exposed,
Along with whipped lemon cream unenclosed, snowy powdered sugar superimposed.

I savored each bite, my taste buds aglow,
As my love for confections surely showed.

And as I finished my last morsel with a sigh,
I knew my love for sweets would never die.

Maybe being here 
We’re really just 
Passing through 
Someone else’s lineage 
On our way 
To a timeline 
Created by our ancestors 
All those years back 
From days and months 
Passed and past 
Maybe it’s just linear 
Yet parallel all at once 
Like a dimensional prism 
Maybe that’s why
We can’t ever seem 
To complete our side 
Of the Rubik’s cube 
Perhaphs this is why 
All my feels have feelings 
That run deeper
Than I can’t handle some days
When words are hard 
Or time spins on edge 
Or when we wake up 
Looking in the mirror 
Not recognizing the reflection 
Its our ancestors staring back 
Having a visit with us 
In the present 
While we’ve aged ten years 

We may never know that part. 
All I can hope for 
All my heart knows
For absolutely certain 
Is that I will find you 
In every single lifetime
That I may wake up in
This force in my chest 
Knows no limits for you, 
For each of them. 
We’ll get there, and back to here
I am sure of it.

today is the longest day

and here we are sitting

around the coffee table

eating fast food

watching the Goonies

the week stretches out

like one of our cats

in a patch of sun

and though it can be

loud and wild

chaos of humans

there’s nothing like

those moments

where the outside world

ceases to exist

Imagine today I am bird-like,
a flap, flap, glide
freedom lifting spirit

I laugh through my beak
ha! Ha! ha! Ha!

Below on the ground, grass,
cars,
humans doing human things

Above, my escape route
around the sassafras, 
mitten leaf waving good day,
through the May town neighborhood
I fly

Across the river
I see home
feel feathers fluttering joy,
going forth profusely.

When I woke from my deep slumber
I saw the door open
Heard a foot scrape the stair
I yelled out
“Are you leaving?”
Thinking somehow it was morning
The air hazy, bright and cool
Seemed to confirm the time
And my dreams and mouth feeling so thick
And you were hurriedly walking to work
After having coffee
Instead of having an 8pm cigarette
As I woke from my two hour nap

Dr. Hue sits beside
the sole bench at Alligator Lake,
word around the condo
is that the great lonely beast
has returned to our modest
body of swamp water
and is hiding out
just blow the branches
of the lake’s only tree, a low
slung willow that seems depressed

My view from the second story
window is singular:
one bench
one man
one tree
small pond
somewhere a bird screeches
no reptile

Without turning around
and looking up
how does he know 
about my watchful eye:
ZZ is watching
waiting and watching
thinking the creature’s presence
a mere fiction,
then in a flash like lightning 
Dr. Hue jumps over the bench
just out of reach
of the monstrous lunge

A door opens in my mind
Dr. Hue has entered my body
his presence 
like the presence of Buddha 

Do this, do that

Oh how I worry I’ll lose every memory I once held

Change this, change that

I wonder what the date is because I can’t seem to keep up

She hates you, and you annoy him

It is not my own death I fear, it is everyone else’s before me

Where did I put my phone?

I shouldn’t have said that

I can’t survive another winter, everything I built will fall with the snow

I need money

When did I eat last

The trees are very green today,

It’s supposed to rain again tomorrow

My dreams will never become real

You’re lazy

I fear I’m not where I’m supposed to be,

Or doing what I should be

This is tiring

I’ll just go to sleep so I can stop thinking for a little while

I forgot to brush my teeth

 Astronomer         
            (liked to look at the stars; proud that I could spell the word)
Teacher            
            (maybe, maybe not; like Mrs. K. but not Miss S.)
Ballet Dancer            
            (admired their strong legs; loved my birthday pink tutu)
Taster in a candy factory            
            (who wouldn’t?)
Poet            
            (eye roll)