When I am alone
Bent quiet on the grey chair in the bedroom
Laundry squished beneath my lower back
Claw marks on arms
anger like a freight train
my red hexagon
A tiny crossing guard waving from the tracks
So obsessed with protecting people
saw it coming
All day small, small, small
Hot wet shame
Ugly little cry face
I did it too.
Bad day for screaming.
Will the yearning end now?
Is this how you felt?
Too late
Look at those cute little eyelashes
I'm hurt
Two boxes of honeycrisps and a bunch of lavender
She looks pretty in that dress
The leaves fall golden-brown-dimpled-purple
I rake them until the web between my thumb and index finger blisters
At long last the new sofa has arrived
150 native plants this fall
soon I'll tier the garden beds
I'm really grateful to have friends
We'll pick our own at the pumpkin patch
Before it rains we walk in the woods
A snake surfaces
Guess what motherfuckers I like a lot of musicals
I press my nostrils to the lavender, inhaling
Gosh dangit, I've misplaced my good trowel
Mosquitos chomp my ass
The beebalm is root-bound
I squeeze and squeeze and squeeze
25 plants in two days
It got too dark for the bridge
And still so much growing to do
Why have we not been listening to the Grateful Dead
I think I know where
Miss the vegan food trucks
Drinking hard cider with orange in it
So many times I stayed. So many times I don't remember why I left
At the time it all seemed so serious
I might have some chamomile myself
Love to the precocious little girl at the farm stand, yearning to be seen
I tell her about Colorado so she knows women can move to the mountains
Wish it was earlier
I read the magazine for Christmas tree growers
Thank you to the young men who considered my dog
I think we should go to IKEA soon
I have eaten the jalapenos
Does sex count as a sport
To try to get the full flight
The squirrel surveys the devastation, baby in tow
I am so sorry I can't breathe
I fill the feeder with birdseed and place it on the hollowed stump: an offering
They have taken the Sassafras and a squirrel's home with it
The falling limbs slap the dogwood, slam the wild sea oats' thin reeds
I'm so sorry.
It was a danger
Trying to care for my neighbors; the squirrel suffers
Trying to care for the other trees; the dogwood and the sea oats suffer
The canopy parts and I feel exposed
I miss the shadow of her trunk, her verdant crown
I'm so sorry
At least more sun flows in
You don't have to try any more.
True love, innit?
I smell the candle though it isn't lit
Vanilla
Perhaps tonight I'll plant more beebalm
Perhaps I'll drive across the river
I've lariope to deliver
My heart broke too
I was thinking of you the whole time.
it's got that wildness
it does behoove me
man I'm so attracted to women
maybe he sees more than I think
devotion isn't always intentional
52 minutes of sex and infidelity
releasing the chaotic twenties
You don't have to be perfect
How do you turn yourself off?
How do you turn yourself on?
Maybe sometimes they're trying to reconnect with an older part of themselves
he'll say it's too personal
I bought a wagon-full of flowers
home past the Slow Down
inside to pee
back to the car, tail thumping, and we're off
after yesterday's biathlon
still feels good to walk in the woods
slowly
home for lunch salad
the singing boy bringing you to tears
into the yard for planting lobelias
back inside, dancing, candle lit
30 minutes of journaling
when the group zoom turns on I'm gone
back into the yard, planting
native asters, creeping jacob's ladder, scarlet beebalm
I have transplanted the hibiscus
You'll need to rent a stump grinder
it's looking more like you
she wears yellow trestles
so glad you have your horse to occupy the couch
once upon a time I thought I'd be a steeplechaser
wouldn't take me too long I don't think
Join us to fight the flu
remember walking daily city sidewalks with grime and trash embedded in them, with layers upon layers of the evidence of soles
For years I rode the subway to get to places
Then my skis, and wheels, my feet
Now it's all of it
I really am shockingly grateful
loving my nail polish
letting in that mischievous energy letting in that chaotic energy letting in that vitality
She's loving it!
I miss the closeness of women
I love the fierceness of women
I really do feel a lot more free
that's what I was going for
prosperity and creativity and true love and sex
The poison spreads
Wrist, forearm, bicep
Thigh? Maybe. Hope not
The chocolate warehouse burned down
Perhaps I will go to the candy factory
There's a butcher in the shoppe
1.5 hours to circumnavigate the lake
I like my kayak and call her Caddy
We putter around. A heron starts. Cormorants fan their wings on a slowly sinking log. White egrets circle the shallows. Yellow lilies about to burst. Turtles sunning. I scoop a drowning bug on my paddle and tip them onto the front of my boat. They ride the helm, wings drying, triumphant. They take off when they're ready--15 magnificent feet of flight before plummeting back to the water. I turn the boat around, scoop the drowning bug onto my paddle, tip them once again onto the red plastic. I aim for the bushes overgrowing the bank. They leap when we're close, scrambling onto a branch
Safety is always tenuous
Is it driving you mad?
It's driving me
Perhaps I'm foolish. I didn't make it up
I edit the novel
I take Hanna for a run in the woods, through meadows sensual with goldenrod
Someone has placed bags of brown leaves and acorns at the foot of the driveway
I'm brave enough
I just don't see things that way
Not interested in battling
Still have fight in me
I paint my nails with vegan colors: left hand gold, right hand lavender-blue. left toes lavender-blue, right toes gold
The hyacinths won't last the winter
Unburdened of shame
At 8 o'clock I'll dance again
Are you?
If I could spend all fall in the fecund woods I'd do it