Today I forgot the word for widow. I visited all the neighboring words: late, former, forgotten, leftover, left behind. I gripped my hands to each other, and opened them, over and over. As if the word could be found there. As if a synonym for widow is the moment when two held hands unclutch from each other. Today I stood outside my apartment and tried … Continue reading 17. plans
My star-shaped holepuncher could fill anything with the absence of stars,and I sat outsidein the cold air: a pile of leaves, my punched canvases. I would let them take the wind when they needed to leaf. Art belongs to itself alone,and I was waiting up for Venus. When the twinkle in the sky became clearto carry a name with certainty,a bright white brighter than anything … Continue reading why the moon is a little smaller now than it was 30 years ago
My mind remembers how it loves the sun, but it plays the game of telephone when it talks to my body now. My mind says desert,my arms hear dizzy. My mind says orchid, my neck hears burn. My mind says lizardand my body hears melt, melt,melt. And the body wins, the body wears. On hot days like this,the space between my body and mind is … Continue reading aphasia residue
(Title after a poem by James Wright, “Today I Was Happy So I Made This Poem”) Today I was happy so I ran a brush through my hair one hundred times. The grip of the comb a gratitude itself, look how I clutch, look how I hold, look how I care for myself. Today I was happy so I gathered one hundred children and told … Continue reading Today I was happy, so I made this post.
My hair is long enough now that it can hold itself up if I tie it right. Before tiny clots slipped into my brain and dented the hardware, this would have been impossible, length or no. My hair was slippery soft then, resistant to anything that wasn’t a beeline freefall. I could coil the strands around a silently burning cylinder and, for a second, the … Continue reading swish
Sometime in the dark of early morning, I shook a fluffy blanket out and made tiny lightning. I spread my arms wide and parachuted a miniature sky of spark and star. I forget that static electricity looks the way it looks. Most days, it’s an invisible thing, a small jaw snapping at my ankles across a carpeted ocean. But in the right light– or, without … Continue reading jan 6
On the coast, the fog crashes through like kaiju, disappearing trees and buildings with a single blow. The dense and guttural cries inspire my joints to take their place in the chorus, creaking and groaning, too. My body, my city, is a monster movie before the destruction, during the destruction, after the destruction. We call the after the rebuilding, and the before the good ol … Continue reading cauliflower seashells
The last few days have been very good days for me, and I find myself so charmed by the possibility that this could be every day, or most days, that I just want to shout HAPPY from around a mouthful of toast. Thank you, Universe. You’re doing a good job. Some from the laundry list of reasons: My current stage of neurotherapy tests have become … Continue reading happy
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