Terminal B
The bird is singing to find another bird. It's been calling into a space full of thousands of people who have made themselves carefully unavailable. The question is whether we've left any room in ourselves to call back.
The Floods
People were asleep. The night was ordinary until it wasn't. The distance between dreaming and wading through your own hallway calling your child's name was measured in minutes.
Not Here
The deer was born here too. Not in some distant wilderness. Here, beneath our windows, in the shade we created when we planted the dogwood. Not here, we say. But here is exactly where it is.
The Good Yard
The silence that's coming won't be peaceful. It'll just be empty. We're paying for it in installments, monthly, by the yard, on a schedule, because nobody told us to ask what we were actually buying.
The Couch
I'm not trying to escape the system. I'm trying to remember, often enough to matter, that I'm in one. That the wanting to check isn't always my wanting. Each time I remember, it counts.
Home Depot on a Friday Night
Twenty years. Seven houses. He still wants me there even when I'm not helpful. He held my hand when we walked in. Same as always.