Poem for Thursday and Marvel at Funko

I Stare at a Cormorant
By Tiana Clark

with its waterlogged wings spread open,
drying off on a rock in the middle
of a man-made lake after diving for food
and it makes me think about wonder
and it makes me want to pry and stretch
my shy arms open to the subtle summer
wind slicing through the park, sliding
over my skin like a stream of people
blowing candles out over my feathery
body and it makes me think about my
church when I was a kid, and how I
lifted my hands to Jesus, hoping
for surrender, but often felt nothing,
except for the rush of fervent people wanting
to be delivered from their aching, present
pain, and how that ache changed the smell
in the room to money and how I pinched
my face and especially my eyes tighter,
tighter and reached my hands higher—how
I, like the cormorant, stood in the middle
of the sanctuary so exposed and open
and wanted and wanted so much to grasp
the electric weather rushing through
the drama of it all like a shout
in the believer’s scratchy throat.

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My Thursday was about as quiet as my Wednesday, after sleeping late because I was up with an upset stomach in the middle of the night. Weather was gorgeous again, we walked to the beach again, saw cormorants and turtles as well as geese and ducks. This time Kristen and I managed to watch the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp and the start of Captain Marvel, and I saw most of the Orioles game (they are not having a good week). 

After Thursday night chat, we ate the leftover Thai food from dinner at Noi with my friend Shalini on Monday, then we watched this week's Shelter, which has been very ambitious and we've yet to see if it can wrap up all its threads in a satisfactory manner. Now we're watching yet more Grantchester, the last episodes James Norton is in. Here's the Marvel section of the Funko HQ, including some of the characters on the bridge across the street: