Raw

It’s like someone took an eraser to my executive function.
I forgot to make myself coffee this morning. Coffee!
Can you imagine? The one thing in my life that
turns my insides to juice, slipped my mind. And the librarian
had to dismiss me from the desk after she checked out my books. “It’s ok.
You’re all good. You can go now.” Because I was waiting
for something else to happen. Just staring and waiting.
Driving home the trees with their thin branches pierce me.
The fat robins jumping—I feel the weight of them.
I have to clean out the mouse cage before my daughter’s birthday party.
I have to return book one and two and get book three and four of the “Warrior” series for her.
I have to let Jen know her pendant is ready.
What good is a list if
I have no desire to follow along?
How can I read or listen to the radio
with words already seeping into my skull from somewhere else?
It’s a good thing I chose not to write when my kids were still at home.
I would have lost one or dropped one.
Can’t keep too many things in my head at once.
And there’s my husband in his tank top
raking the walk
scrape, scrape, scraping the winter dirt away.
I feel the sound of it on the inside of my skull
a little.
And there’s the rush of air sound
as he torches the weeds between the cracks.
I’m glad he decided against the poison
this year.
And there’s the breeze reaching through the window
and handing me the curtains.