POEM A DAY – January 26

Blinds

In my dream this morning in the four o’clock stomach: a toddler, blonde haired, blue-eyed, wore a dress with a hem with a frothy white circumference, in a house filled with rooms half-furnished, blinds mostly closed, and the one I tried to open wanted to fight, the pull strings and the long plastic twisty wand didn’t work – wouldn’t let the light in so I gave up to find the child that kept hiding. I found her in a closet, a live body at the bottom of a stuffed toy pile that heaved when she giggled. Finding her brought more anxiety knowing she’d disappear again and something was pressing on my ribs…I had to pack our clothes…a trip was imminent but the weather…the weather was bad beyond the blinds that wouldn’t open, and my sister was on the sofa that moved from room to room like a shadow, and she was calm, not helping, and I wanted to leave this dreamscape that I knew was a dreamscape but as one knows the giant space between right and wrong, the spectrum of greys between black and white: the purgatory of change is the monster’s masterpiece…and one waits for the brushstrokes to line or curve or slop or dot or clump…A text on my phone put my body back in my body. My real child’s exam: cancelled. The weather, bad enough to close schools…I walked to the living room, magnet-ed up the blinds – no strings or wands to complicate…let in the night’s turning shoulder, pulling the blanket of day: the light a soft protest that persists like hope, like love, like change.

Happy Monday! Erm…wondering if you’re thinking about a unique way to stay warm…writing erotica? It’s a wild and crazy way to spend Valentine’s Day…generating some spicy love poetry or a sexy scene for your partner? Only a few spots left!! Register today! All the info about what happens at the retreat HERE.