On Wanting Only One Thing
By Rachel Contreni Flynn
for Patrick
This morning the hooded merganser
appears lazy on the lake, puckered feet tucked
beneath her rump so she?s just coasting,
just carving with the cargo of her body
a sloppy channel through snake grass,
silent as a handbag. The merganser pays
no attention to kites swooping in the spruce,
loons keening in the coves, or cormorants
airing their wings on the shore. The merganser
never swivels her head for sleep or grief
or even grooming, so it seems she might be stupid
or nearly dead. But then, at the bright twist
of fin beneath her, her soul becomes a syringe.
She unhinges her joints into sleek steel,
plunges through cold water, small heart soaring,
mind clenched behind hopeful, topaz eyes.
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Tuesday was a chilly day perfect for a bunch of computer work and organizing a bunch of craft stuff, plus some arguing with insurance/pharmacy over prescription timing. We went for a walk in the afternoon to the beach, which had ten times as many geese as people plus a merganser or two; the leaves are starting to turn. Fully half of my Voyager group couldn't come tonight, so the rest of us chatted for an hour.
The Orioles once again beat the Astros in a dramatic game, and the Mariners beat the A's, so that was good news before we watched Ahsoka (am betting the ex-Jedi turns Jedi again and saves the good guys) and Only Murders in the Building (dang, now I don't think Meryl Streep did it but I still want it to be her). Now it's Grantchester and Dickie Astor. At Juanita Beach Park during the PNW Witches' Market:
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