If Wednesday, the doctor’s. Trees stationed, canceling the first light.
If Wednesday, blue of no privacy.
Boston hospital where in me we see. The overwhelming matter. The whole mind.
Return to my street, the cold season. Eating in my coat without sitting. A tomato, some bread. No green around. Maybe yellow.
Call the doctor. Make a payment.
Call the doctor. Another.
Call the beloved and be mean, to incite feeling.
Write. Into the marrow.
Call the beloved. Tell him what is needed. A suit. Zucchini. Books returned to the library, the ones most hated. Don’t share the difficult news. Tell him about the poet canceled most recently, the high school friend’s divorce, the latest on war in the east. What’s seen—a box of sky, trees with nothing in them.
Leak. Change. The mirror makes a picture that isn’t.
Take out the trash. In the mail. On my phone, read an email from a magazine wanting a form, an email from a magazine wanting a form, an email from a magazine about the newest issue, an email about a bargain for things I don’t need, an email asking to save the environment as if I could. An email telling me it’s time for a change.
Write. Looking long makes a thing strange.
Beat the blanket clean.
Meet students at the college to talk about poetry. Walk there, never pay for parking. Anyone who sees will see a woman living. There is evidence. Everything keeps happening. The students will be standing outside my office. They will smile, collectively, as I walk in, seeing the woman they will learn from, as if happy it’s me.
Like daughters. In flannel shirts, naked kneed. Turning, their minds, their rings around long fingers.
Preach about hope. Preach about dream work, what’s under. Preach about the split line, how it can mean two things at one time. Imagine the point in the air, where what was is and what will be, too, the nearly after. Preach about form as night comes on.
If Wednesday, wrap it up. The being is done.
If Wednesday, walk home. In the night. Everything becomes night. See the nothing of it whole. Walking, forget the years of never, all that horrible trying. The cold is clear and probable. The light is another’s, falling onto the sidewalk. Or planetary. Arriving. The smell of the grass.
