Yesterday never got warmer than 39 degrees, and the wind was stiff, but nevertheless I got myself outside between meetings and raked out another garden bed, discovered crocus shoots, did some skunk battling, worked up a glow in the cold breeze. Of course today and tonight we're supposed to get a bit of snow, because it's March, and March is always an asshole. But spring will persevere.

Today will be more of the same: exercise class, desk chores, a meeting, possibly some yard work before the flurries move in, but probably not. I need to catch up on my Aeneid homework. I need to get rid of this sinus headache that's parked itself behind my left cheekbone. I also need to try to take a day off this week, as I'll be teaching all weekend. Though day off just means housework.

Here's a poem from the new collection that is not in any way autobiographical. It was triggered by my desire to use the word chifferobe in a poem . . . a word I first ran into in To Kill a Mockingbird and that for some reason stayed with me. Antimacassar is another such word: the sort that shows up in Edwardian novels, that no one now ever uses. I don't have a brother, or a high-toned drunken grandmother, or a father looking for a handout. I never sat on the floor in a room that resembled this one. Still, I do know something about family sadism, and about the sharp eyes of children.

How to Ask for Money

 Dawn Potter

Grandmother declared, after her third glass of rosé,

that vehement was a flavor.

Then she turned to stare at me. “A curtsey,”

she trumpeted, “is a stitch in time!”

She blinked sardonically

and returned her attention to the antimacassar she was tatting.

Her apartment was as bare as an automobile showroom:

which is to say,

the grand piano was dwarfed by the mahogany chifferobe,

but there were hardly any chairs.

My brother and I knelt on the threadbare kilim

and counted butterflies and birds.

Our father twitched on the piano stool and bit his nails.

There was no mention of lunch.

[from Accidental Hymn (Deerbrook Editions, forthcoming)]