Lee 🪡🪢 🇨🇦

~ Tempests ~ Having come from the seas of your storms and decades of disquiet, I step, directionless, on an unmoving Earth. Being tooled for havoc, I despair of knowing what might fill this brazen peace, this wild surcease. [Art: The Ship, by Salvador Dali]

Yes.

It’s easy.

~ Missing you ~ At the sudsy soapy sink I think With hands that have a care Wrinkled fingers, rosy pink, would rather be elsewhere That eggy fork with yolky tines needs scrubbing carefully. I’m thinking more of valentines and Christmases to be The curvature of salad bowls The roundness of a spoon They summon back, in sweet repose, my lady of the moon.

Please.

Yes.

~It was like one of those nights watching television when you're not quite sure if the lights just flickered. I stood in the bright kitchen and imagined that something flew at me, and the art made it come- a black wing that fanned my face, then careened back to its realm.~

Hear.

Sounds she hears, well-worn and dependable: the jingling of keys before he goes; the muffle-thump of the car door upon his return. And now, from the kitchen, the dish clatter... except this time there are three identical verses, as though played on a tape loop. An echo. A glitch

@joanne_paulson @graestonewriter @JasPhoenix_Rise @LaylaHawke2 @booksbyJeanneR @Elderac Wordle 1,969 X/6 ⬛⬛🟨⬛🟩 ⬛🟩🟨⬛🟩 🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩Really? I mean, really?

Say it out loud.

Yes. Why?

Do something.

Someone stop these bastards.

When alone, I understand the madman, though I won’t let him get out of hand, just yet.

Yes. It’s time.

#vss365 ~ The day before winter ~ A walk, shortened,
in October bluster. 
Black branches flailing
shake off leaves to the bonfire of fall.
Escape, they do, in a tumble dry dance.
Carpet the catwalks.
Stick to the shoes. The future’s opaque.
Carrying, carrying things.
Stumbling towards rest.
Knuckles of anxiousness
push up, under the jawline. Boxes,
unopened these years.
A pair of neglected sneakers,
remembrance of running,
regret now
they didn’t die a natural death. This material mountain,
trove of trivialities,
hobbling our limp
to tomorrow.

An old man was in the grocery lineup today. The store was quite crowded and busy. He seemed to lean on his cart a bit, as if for support, while he studied a wrinkled hand-written list in hopes that he had not forgotten anything. When his turn came, the cashier asked him, pleasantly, if he had his "rewards card" with him. Fumbling through his wallet, he said he couldn't find it, whereupon she circled something on his receipt and said "just phone this number, and they'll update your points." He thanked her. Seeing some impatience in the line behind him, and realizing that he still had to bag his stuff, he instead just piled it back into the cart and moved on. Outside, there was cold rain, sleet, and a brisk wind. The man opened his trunk, set up his empty bags, carefully placed all of his groceries into them, and returned his cart to the corral, bemoaning the fact that most of the others had been shoved in with no regard for order. He was almost back to his car when a wild wind gust came and blew his hat away. He stood for a second, nodded, then got in, closing the door. Hunched over, he leaned his head on the steering wheel. I think he might have been crying.

You are different. You can look into my eyes, and not look away. I remember, now, how to look into a mirror, unflinchingly. From what life do you come, and how came the art of this miracle? This smile that cracks my lips. This wanting to play.

Something whole. A cabbage. Tomorrow, perhaps a pumpkin. On her shelves, bowls of fine porcelain, empty and dusted weekly. Gifts, still in their boxes, re-wrapped in their gilded papers. And sounds. The soft bump of the door as it is pushed to. The snick of the lock. The rippling click of the brass key. Then, the quiet.