Category: Writing

The toaster oven ticks. I’m staring. I’m thinking about when I come home from being away for a few days. I can see myself opening the door, bending down, anticipating the dog – a reflex. His bed is gone. The house is quiet. Snapping out, I remember I’m supposed to be pouring coffee.

The switch is turned off. No thoughts. Really? I walk a long and silent hallway looking for my thinking. It’s blank. All the doors are shut. It’s not dark, not light. Behind some of the doors, I suspect thoughts tinker and cobble, mechanisms grind and spin – silently and unseen. I don’t pry.

The morning light is peaches and cream. The view from my table only changes if I choose to see the change. Blades of grass nibbled down by rabbits. A shrub grows an inch or two. The people in the house next door come and go, come and. Minutes have passed. Days too.

I don’t want to mention the robin’s song – but there it is like the first lullaby of the night. The darkening sky has that painter’s shade of blue again, a dusty version of cerulean. I close my eyes. I see pink and green silhouettes of famous people decked out in Warhol brights.

It’s late in the day. The sunlight after the rain glints off everything shimmery wet. It’s the yellow sparkle of white wine, the dew drop rolling down green grapes, the condensation on the tilted glass. That’s the freshness of this light. The slow slip of a summer day cooling into pale evening.    

A blue wasp emerges from a hole on the underside of a chair. She drops a neon green bug carcass and crawls back in. A blue wasp emerges from a hole on the underside of a chair. She drops a neon green bug carcass and crawls back in. Seven carcasses so far.

Six finches hop and flit on the back deck. They crawl through lattice holes in the patio table and chairs. They chase a moth, chase a wasp. Six finches preen and rest and move about. They find the shade, they find the sun. They eventually fly away.  No finches on the deck.

Drop the moon through flannel blue skies and drift away on dream addled clouds. Words swim in purple amniotic seas. In this cracker box house on a saltine shore we replaced all the window shades with butterfly wings.  When the sun comes up, we’ll bow our heads and begin the day anew.

This daily fifty-two compels me. This daily fifty-two propels me. It stalls me, it calls me. It bores me, it chores me. Here, at the end of the day, I have little to say. I’m dull to the world. Day and night have unfurled. And I can’t capture any of it succinctly.

The morning mower chokes and stalls on thick grass wet from last night’s rain. He walks slowly and in small steps, the man behind the mower, pushing nudging, retreating, and restarting.  A different man doing Sunday things on this midweek holiday hammers a board into place. This sunny day is heating up.

Oblivion is a black hole. If I’m not careful, this day will flirt at its edges. The gravitational forces will start to suck the day in. I may have to grab it by the arm and pull with all my might. It’s early, but I can already feel my grip giving way.