In the daylight hours I tell myself I
have more important things to do than write a poem.

I fill my water pitcher up a dozen times a day, and
I turn my blinds one way, then the other.
I write the same 26 letters over and over again,
sit them next to checkboxes,
and then cross them
all
off
one by one.

At night,
the poems I didn’t write goosebump my skin, and
I tuck myself deep into blankets
to fight the chill.

My late husband used to say that he was too thin-skinned to
leave a story unwritten,
and I get it now.

Water is lava,
because ice is a rock,
and
my full pitchers are emptied into me,
and
the goosebumps are eruptions
of the poems that have to be emptied into something
somehow.

At night,
I tell myself to leave a checkbox for poetry.

I want to be warm.