It wasn’t supposed to snow or smell like dog puke still in the corner of the sofa but it did both (it smelled and snowed), and I tightened my scarf and went out after dark but it was starting to… Read More ›
prose
The month’s last Saturday’s gift is gray
Oh for these last gray days and new moons. For Orion’s belt in the north, in the night. For our yard leaning on its side and the papery brown fronds hanging down. For the milky sun and messy watercolor blues,… Read More ›
The last of the daily monastic offices
There was a problem with the house work I think. I couldn’t stop going between the laundry room and the den and lost track of who I was, I got covered in dog hair and slacks I wore across Europe… Read More ›
Most of them witches
In the manner of my mom’s partner Eberhard I held my head under the hand sink and let the cold water run over me and down my torso as I stood and grunted, examined myself and got dressed. It makes… Read More ›
The circular references in stairwells and turnstiles
In the bath I wrote a poem comparing fruit to genitalia and in our den tried to relax but the record player’s so fussy it requires adjustment, like a harmony of adjustments between the settings for arm tension and anti-skating,… Read More ›
Sunday morning salutation
When the sun rose you could hardly tell. A set of bats stirred from their perch, and were gone. The whole tree, made of bats. Some branches wagged and bobbed, didn’t say a word. The gray inaction, Sunday morning. Even… Read More ›
A degree off from beige
I don’t know why, but I built a fire out back in the afternoon and stood by it. It got so cold one night a planting pot blew out the side and hung open like a cartoon mouth on a… Read More ›
Once more to elsewhere (“are you paying attention?”)
All the details of the world when you’re really in it. The guy at the gas station wheeling in the delivery, the small, waking patterns along the seam of morning, how the mind spins and shakes and follows whatever flickers… Read More ›
Snow-covered mineshaft grate
I took the 900 around the back side of Cougar Mountain, but it doesn’t get much direct light this time of year and the road was icy in early morning, with snow on the trees still—and when Ginger and I… Read More ›
By the time we got to New Year’s
It was cold enough we could use the garage as an overflow for the fridge and I went out there splitting wood, breaking down boxes, consolidating the remains of Christmas pasts and presents—and even though we said we wouldn’t, we… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 