the crisp crunch underboot of Kansas-dry Kentucky bluegrass– the earth contracting, cracks– this is how one lets loose her roots

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

She says she can’t relate because she has never lost anyone. Knowing she will, I teach her to love anyway.

Teenagers are like cats: sleepy, scruffy, smelly, sometimes hissy—beautiful, cruel— the more affection you crave, the less they allow.

She [was the kind of woman who] moved as if she had expected [the] tragedy, not just reacted to it.

Cross-country courses should be more difficult. Seriously. No more mowed paths through native grasses. Let asthmatics and free-breathers compete fairly.

I hear you say again, “Smile.” “Emily, smile.” “Smile!” “Okay, I know you think you are smiling, but you’re not.”

Love is a Mason and Hamlin– more feminine– walnut, not ebony, rounded yellow strings, tapered keys–than the square-tipped Steinway.

The siren song of my anxiety trills three minutes after you close the door. Will I know, when you’re gone?

The city has dug up the bush that encroached upon the sidewalk that the old woman peed behind last month.