Morning was: early, a bowl of muesli starred with berries.
Morning was: writing.
Afternoon was: writing. Tiny blue notes on the top of strangers' poems. Almost. Consider. Tell them to try. Strangers, I am looking out for you.
Lunch was: brie, a sour green apple, a slice of wheat bread, a sweet white peach from the window.
Skin was: pink and tender.
Saved was: a wasp-waisted ant from a spider's web. I had to. I saw him moving and I had to. It seemed like the most important thing I could do, to pull him from her grasp, unwrap. Together we twisted the sticky white shroud, pushed his legs free. Really, I did this. He was fine. I thought I would damage him with my touch, but I did not. He crawled down my legs into the grass. I watched him go.
The most beautiful thing I saw was: an egg cracked open on the sidewalk, fat yellow center, firm as flesh. Kitchen yellow. Fourth favorite dress yellow.
The most beautiful other thing I saw was: what I always see. Corn, green with gloaming (that is a light of day. Read The Remains of the Day, if you do not believe me).
Dinner was: Thai iced tea, coconut milk soup, lemon grass, masa maun.
This is how I fill my time. This is how I fill my body.
The cat came to the backdoor, gray, fluffy, but bones underneath. It came when I called, hissed at the others. Careful, he said. She loves strays.
I like you, don't I? I said.
What I remembered suddenly was: last summer, my friend sitting in the attic, listening to me play the piano, talk of the past. Don't you want to love someone first? she asked. Be the lover, not the loved?
It was August. Candles on the sill. Train in the breeze. Her petal pink skirt. It was almost exactly a year ago, a year in which I would love, I would love and let them go.
Keep playing, she said. Even if it's the same song.
