A late March dusting overnight, confection
finish. Sun in the east sky pushing out
novelty. I don’t think I’ll go out awhile.
My husband and I have Aries mothers, we
stiffen and stun in their active industry,
that’s our grammar: not really here, hooding
our doodle with our free hand, turned away
as if by wind. Mine and I don’t speak
anymore. Their birthdays start and end
the week ahead. Ever late preparing,
we unlock the hideyhole: amulets, boyish
sentiments, simpler years. Pantry stand.
We resist each other’s help, assist each other’s
no and nod.
Ten bighorn on the Perma
ridge Monday when I drove home, careful,
still, each midstair, all on the case
only they see across the face of the cutout
basalt pile, the pachinko of one block
pretty pleistocene tink to its fall.
None breaks to countenance the mistake.
We looked more than a minute at our opposite.
Ace through nine face up, all of a suit.
In the pool that morning there were three of us.
Judy, retired, and Ellen, not yet, tending
bar weeknights at Main & Arlee. We spoke
of all manner of things: family, tea, heydays
of devilry here or peace, the summer shade
the bare tree will give, the clock beneath
the eave that hasn’t yet skipped its hour,
easy wish it were earlier. We soaked
our soak, silent some in the plot. Then,
Judy said what she does here when she soaks
alone: shuts her eyes and offers her face
at the spout, kicks her legs high behind her,
thirty reps each, walks the perimeter.
So we each in turn described our privacy’s
ritual. Mine they had me demonstrate:
to float angels on my back maximally slow,
inflating and expelling one lungful
per one wingbeat. I was conscious not
to flutterkick noticeably. We were in this
medium together, and the business of
my sacrament could ruin it. I made
my shape. I breathed. I kept my position
more or less in the heart of the area.
I moved through regret into experience.
I looked straight ahead, up, into nothing.