placebo

the ceremony of each day grows hostile 
like a needle in my veins 
going under the shape of my resistance
and landscapes of hunger

I've been told to take each day at a time 
I abandon months in a gulp 
but the best minutes become sustenance
still so modest, but medicinal

swaha

clouds thick as suspended hopes
flame singing without words
where do we go from here
friend, there's only now

remember the last time we were 

here, you asked if I had always 

known about sacrifice--

it's how we survived 

this fire I built inside my head 

tenderly lifting all the love

and dread I have tended 

to replay, "let go"

moving to the future

my arms are crossed behind your back
my fingers are too
as though we're raising a stout hammer 
to a sickle moon

I can only watch through this rapid door 

the holiness of 

infancy, childhood, school's odd certitude

and uncertain youth 

your smile now a secret scroll of prophecy 

close to breaking

lashed in ritual errancy and exhortation to 

a city of last resort

and your keys to a kingdom of possibility

yet you share, sweet child--

as you unbar our door to swing open yours--

so warmly, a spare set

"boys' mom" note

So apparently it's National Daughters' Day, and my FB feed is full of lovely people posting about their lovely daughters and I'm loving it esp. as I no longer have daughters this year. (The kids have made Huckleberry an "honorary bro" so I now have four boy-kids.)

Nu has had a cold for a couple of days and spiked a fever last night, so we headed for the drive-through Covid-test this morning. They couldn't find Nu's health records and I was quietly panicking because I thought it was because I'd decided to leave the sex column blank, but it turned out that my tired brain had given them the wrong year of birth (I gave them At's!!). I can't wait to see the AMA's recommendation that sex be removed from birth certificates universally accepted.

so it's universal

new nothings are of the highest order
metaphor is a dark mass of wire
feel the kiss of prepositions
--they're infinite

we inhale before the contented sigh
and embrace like we're a whole
orbit full of revelations,
even in rearview 

the daily socialist

At news: He's not doing that MSW at MSU this year; he's working at Chipotle; he's moving in with a friend he made through DSA next week.

Note 1: I like that his new roommate is a librarian; the roommate likes that I'm a gender studies prof.

Note 2: It seems like At still loves using Mark Fisher as an intellectual tagline.

hold on

I have a ton of stuff beginning to pile up again. I got contracts done, but have final edits to make for the next issue of Jaggery; I got the sponsored panel done, but have mentor-mentee letters to send out for the ongoing NWSA; I got the updates done, but owe my CASA coordinator a log of my continuing education hours; and on and on. 

And this is not even at my day job where I have class prep due + I'm going to get a ton of papers submitted this weekend + I somehow seem to have agreed to give a campus wide introduction to embodied learning practices (not even my research specialty) + have to plan an orientation for the student house I advise + plan an induction for the honor society I co-advise + return to my long-term projects I haven't worked on in ages. 

And this doesn't even begin to start to describe all the work of family and home.

So I'm experiencing stress... and rightly so. 

And I got a submission declined rejected today too.

But Scout and Huck are always adorable.