Saturday, May 31, 2014

Yesterday morning I rushed home from Portland (E. B. White did win, by the way; my predictions were correct!) and then rushed off to a high school track meet, which was eventually canceled because of torrential thunderstorms, and then rushed home (sodden) to make dinner, and then rushed through a nerve-wracking sewing project (which came out beautifully, I'm relieved to say), and then finally stopped rushing, all of which explains why I did not write to you yesterday.

In contrast to yesterday's flurry, this morning I woke up to discover that Tom had forgotten to buy coffee and that Ruckus had left a dead mouse on the living room rug. Then I managed to open a door into my head, and now I feel a lumpy bruise ripening under my left eyebrow.

Today will be the day that my older son catches a plane to France. He is so happy. I do not want to distract him by growing a giant black bruise under my left eyebrow. I would prefer to have him remember me as the mother who swiftly transformed his favorite worn-and-torn Goodwill paisley shirt into a handsome short-sleeved shirt suitable for cafe and boulevard wear.



Blue in Green

Dawn Potter

Talk about art being its own worst
story: once I made the mistake
of playing Kind of Blue to snare
a baby into slumber.

Compare the crime
to those water-green lilies that teachers
Scotch-tape over the reading corner.
Now picture Monet shuffling the hallways
among our fluorescent children.
He would die of remorse. Meanwhile,
I knifed Miles for the sake of an hour’s
enchanted sleep. Who knew how soon
that breathing baby would light out
screaming into the blue?


[from Same Old Story (CavanKerry Press, 2014)]

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