In the book beside me, Nabokov tells of his mother, veiled, wrapped in furs, seated in a sleigh on a snowy Saint Petersburg street, coachman hunched before her, footman perched behind. In the ash tree outside my window, a squirrel twitters and complains. In the local papers, headlines scream, "Killed by a great white shark!" My attention toggles and blinks, like bad wiring. Upstairs, Tom yanks open a sticky dresser drawer--thud; shoves a sticky closet door closed--thunk. The box fan whirs. This morning's air feels a touch cooler than yesterday's, my skin a trace less clammy. It is the last Wednesday of July.

Today will be another day of having no time or space to myself. But I will sit on this couch and copy out Blake poems, no matter what else is happening around me. Twenty-six years ago I had a brand-new baby. That was harder than this.

Here are two lines from a draft I worked on yesterday. I share them not because I love them but because they are. A small comfort: I wrote ten new words.

his half-life a cough a swallow
an unpainted stair