desire is difficult to diagram

if you called my name but I was already gone

I'm sorry

oh, you never quite felt like you could call me--

I'm sorry

will there be a happily ever after... a crying game

I don't know

I know the incandescent knowledge of nearness

I do know 

the history of desire, its statement of purpose 

is to know 

without looking, the beaconing of new pleasure

we failed

to see our souls were rotating towards danger

we fail

each other unraveling faster than imagination 

we wait

circling for directions, feral breath on fur, lying

in wait

__________________________________

Pic: The hand-made dish I found at the thrift yesterday ($2:73!); I nestled some hyacinths, rosemary,  baby aloe, and moss together in it. I think tiny daffodils (when I can get some) would look particularly nice because of the yellow flower in the center. I wonder who made this, whom they gave it to, and why it ended up at the thrift store.

but not yet...

It really did take them two and a half hours to fill the prescription for Big A's anti-virals at Meijer. I did the weekly grocery shop for 45 mins and would have lost my mind having to wait for the remaining time if I did not have a book on my phone (William Dalrymple's The Golden Road; recommended).

I was meant to be in Detroit poking through an art warehouse with LV who was sending me pictures of his finds from said warehouse and started to have serious FOMO. So after settling Big A in with meds and snacks and checking to see if Nu needed anything for the school's winter dance (they didn't), I took myself off to the Horrocks Farmers' Market and the thrift store. I reveled in all the growing things and got some hyacinth bulbs at the first place and found some things I plan to use as planters at the second and returned home feeling more rooted (ha).

I wish I could feel like A is doing better, but he isn't yet. Maybe tomorrow. 

Pic: Tulips... at the Farmers' Market. Not in a field, not yet... but surely Spring is on its way.

it's not novel anymore?

After weeks of  warning everyone around us to be careful out there as there were all kinds of respiratory illnesses out there in the ether/E.R., Big A has developed Covid-pneumonia. He had this weekend off and we had all kinds of plans and I'm so sad and mad about him being sick and me having to quarantine. He gets antivirals tomorrow, so hopefully he'll start feeling better. 

This is round #3 of Covid for him. 

Also, if that wasn't enough, he accidentally got stuck with a needle from a patient with Hepatitis-C as it was being disposed. That's counted as an active exposure and so he'll have to get tested and keep getting tested for a few months to make sure he doesn't develop that too. Hep-C is very serious, and the more I read about it, the the more it feels like I'm looking down an abyss.

Both these things are exposure because of his being in the E.R., of course. We joke about how his job is apocalypse-proof and he'll get paid in potatoes and eggs because he delivered people's babies or set their bones. But I'm ready for him to find another job. (Nu too, probably. They weren't happy about having to cancel the sleepover they had planned for tonight and they were going to hang out and get ready for the school dance with friends here tomorrow too.)

Pic: Everything is frozen and this morning Max and Huck decided to play right in the center of the pond we dug last year. I know I could wade in and rescue them, but I do worry about the ice cracking and dunking them into the water... 

pre-fight hype song

armed with the sindoor of sunrise 
smeared over my morning 
even the soft grey skies feel holy 

as the ash of vibhuti

today it doesn't seem to matter 
that the thing 
we made of history has caught me
I try hope, I try anger

it seems I'll try anything, everything 
in this tumbling world
accidents, things constellate my past
hope peoples my future

my muscles and brain are flexed 
with the good fight 
I use my imagination to succeed 
...or survive 

_______________________________________
Pic: Snow, trees, and the squirrel we call Kylo Ren because of his black garb. 

the many faces of care

We got a new set of knives (X-mas present) that I started using yesterday. I don't know if it was their unfamiliarity or if they're just really sharp but I immediately cut my palm (very stigmata-like!). 

Big A had just headed out to run some errands but popped back in (perhaps I'd yelped/perhaps he's clairvoyant) to check on me and sure enough I needed help. 

He applied pressure and yelled for Nu to grab a bandaid, which Nu delivered and Big A then applied to my palm after the bleeding stopped. 

Big A left.

I resumed dinner prep.

And I cut myself again.

I applied pressure to the wound myself and yelled for Nu to bring me another bandaid.

Nu came back. "Here," they said putting something down on the kitchen counter. "I got you a bunch of bandaids just in case you cut yourself some more."

_________________________

Pic: I had to be at work, but this afternoon there were protests against fascism at state capitols all across the country. This one is in Lansing. Photo via SN, one of the organizers (a trusted comrade for many years now... and someone I first encountered as a student in my composition class eight years ago).

"Ladies' Liquor and Cake"

I am lucky to know JS, the wonderful poet and human, whose brainchild "Ladies' Liquor and Cake" is.

When the invitation to this "essential frivolity" came a few weeks ago, it urged: "These are desperate times and we must cut to the quick: good company (essential), cake (of course) and liquor (naturally)."

I was happy to attend. Now I'm full of good company and cake, sushi (it's my Boss Day), I made time for a yoga sesh, I'm deep into a couple of good books, and also At came by and I got a good cuddle in with the best human cuddle baby I've made! What I can control is going really well.

Outside is still a mess.

Pic: JS had a place for people to post uplifting upcoming events at "Ladies' Liquor and Cake." Her baby's name is Scout too, and that's yet another reason I like being at her place.

things I did I can be proud of

I called my political representatives about the government coup by Musk. I used 5calls.org and it's really easy as they hook you up with the relevant reps and provide a script if you want to use it.  

I tried something new... I applied to a medical  humanities conference over the weekend, and... I got accepted! I think I can use professional development funds to attend this one. (This reminds me that I ought to submit poems to journals. Some poems got picked up by anthologies last year, but I didn't actually send out any all last year. That's terrible. I shouldn't be so afraid of rejection that I never get accepted!)

I tidied my closet... and everything looks so bright and boutique-y. I catch myself going in there like a dork just to look at it. 

I got so many recommendation letters for students and support letters for colleagues done. I was talking to Big A about how I spend too much time on these when the prevailing advice is to get them done as quickly as possible. Reason #457865 to love him, he said of course it makes sense for me to do things in a way that leaves me feeling satisfied. (People depend on these things; I never feel like I can just dash them off.) 

Pic: A sord (I had to look it up) of mallards on a floe on the Red Cedar.

while the chudail puts me to bed

with witchy fingers she traces me

she doesn't say I'm here for you

she says, I'm there for her 

--to eat

                            her hunger is growing in her

                            like a child, but she hates it

                            her rage blooms instead

                            like a storm

 turning on me, she challenges: 

just who do you think I am? 

--I answer quietly to myself

"an asshole." 

*

                             Her anger is pointed, many-pointed 

                             like the sea. There are many things

                             to be angry about right now

                             so I understand

inside my body's cage she tests 

my plumpness, then lights me 

up and tells me to shine 

I'm not fine

                             I am bad and blood soaked but only 

                             on the inside... like her, another 

                            woman, I try to smile, and say

                             goodnight 

_____________________________

Note: Weirdos are all up in everyone's financial info and we have trade wars with the neighbors who sent firefighters to help with the California fires. Things are getting testy all around, and I'm trying to stay calm.

Pic: The Red Cedar River is frozen except up by the rapids; walk with Big A.

uneven thoughts in uneven times

I break the trail     with an ice pick of panic      winter is removal       after all      and carry on      as if      I don't care     I don't want anyone     to see     I care

as it grows dark        with unwritten books      the ink shrinks     into ripples     of edict after cruel edict          they've called this chaos

shock and awe     rising to the center      into centuries    the injury       piercing the moment      everything swelling    out of reach     I witness     what is made--     

--for other people      watch it      come for me      I wait      as the wind loses its way     and wake to the wound     through which     the poem comes

_______
Pic: Max dares me to chase him on the icy snow. Look at his lope, he looks so lupine! 

Hopefulness is not a neutral position...

I found Timothy Noah's analysis in The New Republic really insightful and hopeful, where he argues that this administration's "Chaos Strategy Is Already Blowing Up in His Face."

The whole thing is worth reading, but this part here: "The main purpose, I think, of that OMB memo was to assert that the president has the power to impound appropriated funds. Trump was trying to just blunder his way into asserting this power over appropriations that he doesn’t have. It led immediately to all sorts of lawsuits, entirely foreseeable, and Trump withdrew. Trump is, I have argued, not a strong president. He is a weak president. He has authoritarian tendencies, but he’s weak. He’s mentally weak. He is subject vulnerable to all sorts of manipulation by his aides. He tries to do all sorts of contradictory things. He is not competent. And on the evidence of this particular example, neither are his enablers. Surely, Vought have understood that this memo was going to be challenged immediately in court. He ought to have been able to anticipate that Trump could not tolerate the bad publicity surrounding it so that Trump, even before there was a court judgment, withdrew the memo. These are all signs of a weak presidency, but weakness can cause chaos too. And we’re certainly experiencing a lot of chaos, a lot of fear, and a real degradation of the ability of government to perform its functions."

Pic: Words from Nick Cave, he's not not wrong here.  

prepping < resourcefulness < generosity

According to this article in the New Yorker,  many Americans are prepping for a second civil war. Anecdotally, I've certainly encountered my fair share of people talking about stockpiling canned goods, taking selfdefense classes, and buying firearms and so on since the election. Some of this seems sensible.

Extreme prepping seems like a lot. I'll never forget watching Cloverfield Lane with the kids long ago and being horrified by the John Goodman character. My At sagely told me that that was kind of the point--if you accidentally live through the apocalypse, the people around you are likely to be dreadful.

And here I was patting myself on the back, for being resourceful because I had a stubborn salt stain on my black boots that I disappeared by using a black Sharpie. I think I picked this up from the Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman. She might have used a black eyeliner, but it's basically the same thing--we just have different tools of the trade, I guess. 

Pic: This is Mr. Arlo who was a welcome gatecrasher at my meeting with the MacCurdy students. I am so proud of my students' generosity and proposals on how they could use their house (a women's resource center) as a safe and welcoming space given the possibility of federal freezes, raids, etc. This is the mode that makes the most sense.