Orange rind balanced on the edge of a coupe. I admire them both, as one and as two. Listening to the sizzle of snow falling on fire. Just cuz you’re changing don’t make you a liar. History adds up and ours is sweet fodder. But for this or that we might not have bothered. What good is potential if there ain’t an intent. Love’s never enough, let’s cash in on time spent.

We started the year with a two year old’s toast. I been asking for less but they just do the most. She’s got a penchant for romance instead of the truth. One can’t help but forgive the mistakes caused by youth. Does he take all those ghosts where ever he goes? If we’re storytelling, you’re writing the prose. The kid sings himself softly awake in his crib. We need similar wonder in order to live.

They all planned to rise early for the first chair lift. We both stayed at the bar til the end of her shift. Nothing like chain smoking to make your throat numb. Distractions don’t serve if you can see down the gun. We believe in free will, except when we don’t. It’s not that I can’t, I’m saying I won’t.

rest stop in southern Idaho

Thin ink, huge script: “I’ve got 99 problems and white heteronormative patriarchy is ALL OF THEM”

Underneath, also in pen, in almost normal-sized handwriting: “damn girl u right”

Bold ink and bigger composition, still smaller than the first: “I feel your pain. SUBVERT + RISE ABOVE.”

travel day

Mom woke from her hotel bed at 4AM to say goodbye. 7:30 now and a group of white boys at BWI are drinking oversized beers while the important types bluster into their phones.

I watch a man yell across the food court in greeting, “Hey, I was about to call you! I left you a message yesterday.” He’s delighted. I follow his gaze to the other party and find her beaming at him across the busy tables. I wonder at the circumstances of being in an airport and bumping into someone for whom you’d just left a message.

There are adult bros holding court on their way to snowy mountains. I move away from them because I’d prefer to overhear other voices. I am rewarded immediately by jolly airport staff joking and laughing with each other. If there’s anything I miss about city living it’s the boisterous, startling laughs.

I have to lean over to futz in my bag on the floor in front of me. As I sit up from this I find myself looking directly into a just-risen sun as it blasts between rafters in the airport ceiling. Immediately dazzled, I glance away quickly only to discover that nowhere else was touched by those sharp rays of dawn. Not my body, not any of the bodies around me, not even the floor. Only my own insignificant noggin had been startled and graced by the newborn day. And only in that brief moment, for even as I registered the blinding beauty of it all, the sun moved on.

Later as I people watch, the sneaky rays shine again into a small slice of the teeming departures scene. They grace the head of a very important person who has stopped to check his phone in the middle of the terminal bustle. He is haloed and golden for his own moment, radiant even as he forces traffic to stream around him. Hallowed inconvenience.

Listening to her snoring is like watching the stars. You know what to expect in hotel bars. He finished the book so I could carry it on. I probably won’t write you, but I will dance to our song. Across from her bed I don’t want to sleep. I break our hearts again, and again, when I leave.

she took it very seriously when they said “be the change”. he started to speak feelings and the language wasn’t strange. they sleep all day and dream all night then twinkle in the dawn. she chose to be the summer wind, he spoke familiar tongues. they leave the nest to seek their prey of whom none stand a chance. she breezes through the blooming fields, he brings his song and dance.

What precipitation. A tinkling cold that comes down from dark clouds in chips bigger than flakes, glinting like the mica of our nearby hills. Settling into hair like freezer burn, a head not properly wrapped for this weather. Shake then and watch the crystals fall, glinting in the muted daylight. The scrape and trudge of shovels across pavement breaks a silence built of cloud and ground cover. Frozen water wishes us hush. Anon, clear path accomplished, tintinnabulation sparkles alone again. I want to shake the trees.

They left the car for fifty days; I left my house for months. She makes her cash all kinds of ways, but she ain’t settled once. Stay away long enough, they said, you forget what lonely means. It’s of another structure, built by a broke machine. If the chickadees are chiming in I’m sure they say the same. This head ain’t for equations, but it knows how to stay sane.

Teensy high-heel tracks space wide across the fresh snowfall. Perpendicular, inch long three pronged half steps show that someone took flight here. The first, a bounder determined; the second stepping aimlessly. Someone’s burning juniper again. The moonlight struggles through the covers still waiting their turn. School is delayed two hours tomorrow. I was slow to recollect from my last winter in Maine: the time is for shoveling. I don’t know if my road gets plowed, but I’m ready for some cold weather sweating. After that, my baby’s got brand new snow tires. It is my last week at SWOS until March, and I’m good with it. Delighted to go home and onto other adventures from there. Someone’s burning juniper again, here. I will also look forward to returning.

a kitchen after you’ve cooked: breathtaking. behold, every thing once opened has remained so. some lids are nearby, among leftovers left in view. all drips undabbed, small spills streaked smeared. used utensils lean about leaking leavings. the sink only evidences the same—a chef who barrels on with creation, never stopping for cleaning or clearing the clutter. my full belly fully chuckles at the happy task ahead. house rules: the cook never cleans. and wow, can you make a mess.

under pressure

I am frayed from the tautness of strained senses. My eyes are weakened from looking closely, brow furrowed. I seek silence for my exhausted ears. Muscle and bone, too, are talking quite loudly for my liking, unrelaxed and underutilized. At loose ends my legs refuse to rest, wanting to wander, the mind in hot pursuit. I will pace and wonder and again. Tension leaves too slowly. Growth hurts.

You spent years tilling the soil. Turning it over in scratches and heaps, moving manure. You made ready. There in the black gold you finally lay your precious seeds, then tended them heartily. Water and sunlight and love. When the time came to leave your work to progress on its own, you watched hungrily. Oh, green! Leaves unfurling bright with the promise of plenty. Buds were imminent, you knew, but in your fervor you mistook them for fruit. These small beauties must be left to grow, dear sower. Let them breathe and be. Despite your toil and your time, there is nothing yet to reap. Each season goes slowly. A rhythm only roots can know. A patience to which you now strive. Watch as your care takes hold.

Deep down my gut rumbled, the thunder resounding through my body up and out in a strident expulsion of air, nearly satisfying, before sputtering out into a meek disturbance. Immediately in the depths again grew a greater grumbling, released of its trappings by the vanguard, creeping up my body then suddenly bursting directly from my gut out my mouth. An emission spectacular and powerful, but not overly forceful. Natural deflation. The best burp.

They’ve got iron clad foundations that all let them off the hook. They met a little dogma and then claimed they wrote the book. The mountain passes change all day: sun and mist and snow. The pikas they don’t hibernate, just putter deep below. If the neighbors’ lights obscure the stars I don’t know what I’ll do. There’s gonna be a full moon soon and I’ve been missing you.

I made a weird camping meal and my stomach is bubbling. You leaned over once when I felt this way, to lift my knee from the bed across my torso. Out came the air and our wild delight. All at once like gusts on a mountaintop, our lungs emptying with laughter as my gut exhaled.

I tried to buy what they were selling but it just ain’t fit me right. Like that story he was telling about the car drove by that night. Here’s a highway, there’s an exit. Share a toke. What’s your sign. You could pray that I’ll forget it but you know your god ain’t mine.

If instead I was everything. Breathing in rhythm with chirping crickets. Stomach like the weather. Each star a window to the wide world below. The distant highway rings, coursing blood. A magpie makes plans. A coyote sings memories. Eroding joints, the clattering of fallen rocks. Limbs in the wind, skin leaves.

Little things

Gifts of stove and pot, from Rainbow and blood family, respectively. Stolen propane from a big box store. Fresh veggies and good spices. Most importantly though: the time it took to get proficient at living like this (Did you know that I was not a camper prior to moving into Casa Sorcha/my car?), without a fridge and on my own. Buen trabajo, buen provecho.

The ravens are up to something. Forming a parliament or a murder, they croak overhead accompanied by wing-swept rushes that remind me of the first time their noises were startling. Dry wind like a comically loud whisper, sometimes a rustling high whistle, whooshes beneath raven bodies pushing through sky like phantoms. Thick, percussive birdsong from the juniper brush: a brilliant but simple, unseen xylophone. Gargled notes rhythmless; sweet melodious chuckles. Cluck, chortle, squawk, caw. The ravens are up to something.