Prayer and Profanity

[cedar and cigarette smoke]

This morning my coffee

tasted just like pennies.

Maybe it was the grounds

that snuck through the French press.

Maybe I bit the inside of my mouth again

I’m always doing that

when I have too much to say.

sometimes the pain just feels nice

Either way, I stood barefoot

in the kitchen holding a mug

staring off into space

Outside, the neighbor’s flag

kept changing its mind in the wind

I have always loved weather because nobody blames it for being inconsistent.

People say,

it’s just passing through.

Imagine being granted that kind of mercy?

I’ve spent years alphabetizing catastrophes

that never arrived. Taking false inventory.

Why am I dwelling on the dwelling?

You would’ve laughed.

You always laughed

like nothing in the room

was permanent, not even the grief.

Especially grief.

I still remember your sweater.

Brown and cozy

One sleeve slowly unraveling.

I’d pick at it and make it worse when

you were too quiet for my liking

It smelled faintly of cigarettes

and cedar,

which shouldn’t work together,

but somehow did.

prayer and profanity.

You kissed me once

with the concentration of someone

trying to hang a crooked picture frame.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget being lipsed

So intentionally. So constructionally

I still don’t know what survives us.

Voicemails.

The odd habit of reaching

for the other side of the bed

years after it’s empty.

sunflowers

pretend they aren’t

always turning toward something.

author photo from today after driving 1.5 hours into the city only to have to parallel park in front of her destination.!!!!! 🤬😤