Poem for Monday and Pennyfield in Autumn

house of strays
By Kristy Bowen

Suddenly, a hole opens in the year and we slip into it, the riptide
pull of strange, lonely dogs and broken phone lines.
You forgive me if I mistake hunted for haunted,
but I do like to rearrange things in my body every few years.
Take a can of gasoline to the frayed and ghosted.
Lights out. All hands on deck.
Still you wonder why I keep losing my shoes in the road
and coaxing cats in the alley with cans of tunafish and a flashlight.
Why my contentment is beautiful, but highly improbable, sort of like
four leaf clovers or an ice cream truck in the middle of the night.
This tiny thing breathing between us that aches something awful.
By summer, I am slipping all the complimentary mints in my coat pockets
while you pay the check. Gripping the railings on bridges to keep
diving over. Some dark dog in my throat when I say hello.

--------

Sunday started with snow which turned into ice. Our only firm plan for the day was to get Daniel back to College Park, so I spent the part of the morning for which I was awake reading, organizing photos, and watching the Maryland women's game. When eventually Daniel woke up for, well, a late lunch, we decided we should drive him sooner rather than later, before it started to get dark, but my computer got some kind of malware which then took an hour to clear up. Eventually we got to College Park, but it was a harrowing drive and walking both down our front steps and to Daniel's apartment over a sheet of ice was worse!

We made it home, started doing chores, and then I realized there was a Once Upon a Time special on before the episode, so we ate dinner while watching that, then watched the new episode -- oh, I wish the show could be as feminist as Jennifer Morrison and Lana Parilla made it out to be in the special, but it's still all about what the boy hero, the male villain, and the lover boys want, even the new villainesses are languishing before Rumpelstiltskin shows up. And Downton Abbey has its own issues but I did not hate this season the way I hated last season! Some photos from Pennyfield Lock late last autumn: