Running late after stumbling for the wilds of our bodies, sewing oats to borrow that phrase & so much rain in the forecast putting it mildly, righteously or cool. You choose. Was punched a time or two, you betcha, & I myself wasn’t always loving, thoughtful or kind, did not genuinely thrill when the century closed over those of us living there, i.e. a century of cigarettes & pills before the next stood up & took its rightful place. At the crossing gate, the conductor still waving from the window of her train. For what wrongdoing would we tie an arm twice across that track? What for a ribbon through the machinery unscathed? Lost too are the schoolbooks, the pillows as though in a room we never knew. There, I hung my clothes to know where the wind was blowing.

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