06-16-2026, 02:41 PM
I Woke Up Feeling So Irritable This Morning!
A brief stint in the garden almost killed me when you didn’t
call: all my loose skin came undone, bits of brown
stretched into a macrame of insect bites and furrows dug
by thorns. To garden is to suffer. One scoops the bulbs up
from the earth swearing to faithfully rehome their roots, that the tiny hail
of nitrogen can fix whatever needs fixed. One listens to the honeybees intently
for no reason, knowing good and well all insects
sound the same: the thrumming of an old in-window AC unit
death-rattling in sine waves through ether we now know
doesn’t exist. What grows, to the extent it does, depends on the oblique half-moon
hanging from the mailman’s troweled jowls. Maurice will soon deliver me
a new abundance, love delayed, slender packs pregnant with seeds
with romance novel names. Forget-me-not, black-eyed Susan. Jump-up,
Johnny: Jack’s back in the pulpit and we’ll all have snow
in summer. It doesn’t really matter what I plant: death is still
death. After a dozen humid nights, all bodies look the same.
Still I think my work well spent: yesterday, the cat awoke
and bounced relentless on my chest, an unclipped claw
convincing me to scream straight out of bed and fall
into azaleas. I got drunk on amaryllis, took an unplanned nap beside the rose.
It wrapped its vines around me like a contract. You know I do not care
for rigid women; I did not sleep well. Today I take my cup of tea
so slowly that my insides by the time I finish are the warmest liquid
on the place. It must be raining on the Thames, which I have
never seen. Time remains the world's most faithful surgeon, cutting
brittle leaves from my green arms, making room for the next bright bud
to rise up like a fist. I watch the bees do their agnostic worship
in the pollen, quivering with mindless pleasure, and beside your empty chair
my heart is full and satisfied. I wouldn’t lie to you.
A brief stint in the garden almost killed me when you didn’t
call: all my loose skin came undone, bits of brown
stretched into a macrame of insect bites and furrows dug
by thorns. To garden is to suffer. One scoops the bulbs up
from the earth swearing to faithfully rehome their roots, that the tiny hail
of nitrogen can fix whatever needs fixed. One listens to the honeybees intently
for no reason, knowing good and well all insects
sound the same: the thrumming of an old in-window AC unit
death-rattling in sine waves through ether we now know
doesn’t exist. What grows, to the extent it does, depends on the oblique half-moon
hanging from the mailman’s troweled jowls. Maurice will soon deliver me
a new abundance, love delayed, slender packs pregnant with seeds
with romance novel names. Forget-me-not, black-eyed Susan. Jump-up,
Johnny: Jack’s back in the pulpit and we’ll all have snow
in summer. It doesn’t really matter what I plant: death is still
death. After a dozen humid nights, all bodies look the same.
Still I think my work well spent: yesterday, the cat awoke
and bounced relentless on my chest, an unclipped claw
convincing me to scream straight out of bed and fall
into azaleas. I got drunk on amaryllis, took an unplanned nap beside the rose.
It wrapped its vines around me like a contract. You know I do not care
for rigid women; I did not sleep well. Today I take my cup of tea
so slowly that my insides by the time I finish are the warmest liquid
on the place. It must be raining on the Thames, which I have
never seen. Time remains the world's most faithful surgeon, cutting
brittle leaves from my green arms, making room for the next bright bud
to rise up like a fist. I watch the bees do their agnostic worship
in the pollen, quivering with mindless pleasure, and beside your empty chair
my heart is full and satisfied. I wouldn’t lie to you.
