This is my project–in the spirit of Jack Handy’s “Deep Thoughts” on SNL–20 true words/day. Will you write with me?
20 true words: lesson
the crisp crunch underboot of Kansas-dry Kentucky bluegrass– the earth contracting, cracks– this is how one lets loose her roots
20 true words: MIL
for her, hands are a marker of age and class– calloused bitten bloody worn and capable– she gifts me lotion. Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz …blogs.loc.gov Alfred Stieglitz | Georgia O’Keeffe–Hands | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
20 true words: parenting
She says she can’t relate because she has never lost anyone. Knowing she will, I teach her to love anyway.
20 true words: totally a cat person
Teenagers are like cats: sleepy, scruffy, smelly, sometimes hissy—beautiful, cruel— the more affection you crave, the less they allow.
20 true words: self-portrait
She [was the kind of woman who] moved as if she had expected [the] tragedy, not just reacted to it.
20 true words: 1st prize is a machete with built-in inhaler
Cross-country courses should be more difficult. Seriously. No more mowed paths through native grasses. Let asthmatics and free-breathers compete fairly.
20 true words: grimace
I hear you say again, “Smile.” “Emily, smile.” “Smile!” “Okay, I know you think you are smiling, but you’re not.”
20 true words: less flash, more heart
Love is a Mason and Hamlin– more feminine– walnut, not ebony, rounded yellow strings, tapered keys–than the square-tipped Steinway.
20 true words
The siren song of my anxiety trills three minutes after you close the door. Will I know, when you’re gone?
20 true words: what one notices about her neighbors, part two
The city has dug up the bush that encroached upon the sidewalk that the old woman peed behind last month.