February 29
By Jane Hirshfield
An extra day—
Like the painting’s fifth cow,
who looks out directly,
straight toward you,
from inside her black and white spots.
An extra day—
Accidental, surely:
the made calendar stumbling over the real
as a drunk trips over a threshold
too low to see.
An extra day—
With a second cup of black coffee.
A friendly but businesslike phone call.
A mailed-back package.
Some extra work, but not too much—
just one day’s worth, exactly.
An extra day—
Not unlike the space
between a door and its frame
when one room is lit and another is not,
and one changes into the other
as a woman exchanges a scarf.
An extra day—
Extraordinarily like any other.
And still
there is some generosity to it,
like a letter re-readable after its writer has died.
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My excitement for Tuesday was picking up my new glasses, which are exactly like my old glasses except a bit stronger for near vision. (I was next door to Goldberg's and thought about going in to get one of their excellent rye bagels but I could see through the window that they were already out of them.) Otherwise, I enjoyed the lovely weather, watched some of the baseball postseason while doing chores, and took a walk in the afternoon while the temperature was dropping ahead of the rain.
My Voyager friends and I watched the second half of "Caretaker" before the debate, which I could only handle for a few minutes. I told Paul that we could watch sports, and because the Yankees were up like 57 runs, we wound up watching more Schitt's Creek. We have a president summoning white supremacists from a debate podium while a Fox News moderator doesn't even call him out -- even Rick Santorum thinks he's a disaster. Ugh. Look, Maryland Zoo penguins!
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