Arthur, 1992
Ice Fishing on Europa
Junk Drawer
New Year
Not Grace Exactly
Proper Shoes
Scranton
The House Across the Street
The Meetinghouse
The Scrape
The Stirling Stone
There Should Be a God
Watching Citizen Kane in Alaska
What the mind keeps, it keeps
New Year
Grace
Like all beginnings, it held hope in a tight fist:
This is the year
you’ll do that thing. So I say goodbye
to the plants we couldn’t keep
alive, each dried up promise
to do the dishes, take out the garbage,
sweep the dust and hair.
My hair is leaving me
by the hundreds each day. It’s not me;
it’s science. We lose almost enough
hair each year to make a full wig. I am lucky
my biggest inconvenience is my hair growing
scientifically weary of me.
I tell myself it is just another day
to pet my dog, wake up
next to the one I love. A new day
to reconvene with my body, finally
have time to say good morning
to every unseen speck of dust.
I wind my watch. It has seen
sixty-three New Years. Which is to say
it knows every minute
for what it is:
A kindness.