On Such a Morning

with coffee and peanut butter toast and 800 mg. of ibuprophen, what a breakfast.
So much going on, so, so much. Soon my parents visit (huzzah to the skies!) M & I are scrambling to balance some serious plans, including travel and well, other, and prepping the guest room, the sun room and deck,hanging curtains (you just wait!) with painting (there is a disturbing firework chrysanthemum of velvet red on the bathroom wall where I wanted to get a sense of the color and then just stopped.) I have now the most wonderful kitchen bench--beyond my wishes for it--gorgeous wood, a carving at the back and a storage bench underneath! All those wonderful aprons and kitchen extra sillinesses will have a home. I attempted to re-embargo my book (Teatime) with UC and found that I have little time to publish it and only one additional year of embargo available. This means editing poems and the book as a whole. I meant to attend Colerain for that, but the one and only Stevarino will be in town that very same weekend. Worth it.

And April awaits with all of its poetic responsibility. Chicky and I are writing food poems and I am trying to set students up to do the balloon launch and guerella poetry events all month. I would like the campus abloom with verse, if not all of Columbus. Anyway, lots of travel and well, interesting events up ahead. I am busy, a little freaked-out but generally so happy.

Found the site to register by hot pink bus found back in the days of Victorian Village. It is very much my kind of project and I feel happy again to have found that little playing card sized block of fucshia and bus-yellow wood.

I have excised a lot of overvigilance from my life and this finding of this hidden-thing and the artful and civic connections it brings, remind me that some sorts of watching-closely are still good.


Instructions for Vigilant Girls

Be the sleeping sister who sees no one.
Stay stuck in. Later, hand over

a list of suspects: the handyman,
the bachelor neighbor, the uncle

who was never really your uncle.
When there are conversations,

take notes in your secret diary:
She said she saw him look at things.

Wear the key in your hair. No one
will search there. Speak on behalf

of the soon-to-be-missing, but if they play
in the woods near your home, do not

trail them to an encounter with the man
in the conversion van who gently insists

you hunt for his puppy and means you
no harm through his pleated pockets filled

with stars and balloons, real pieces
of the moon. Resist. Try not to lick anything.

Bring your gum eraser and be invisible
as a grackle to the well-trained watcher

who follows your movements
but never reports them until

you are found veiled in a strip mall basement,
throat unfurling with threats and questions.

Erika Meitner