Every First Draft

You write at the speed of waning moonlight slogging through a midnight Pacific Ocean, your words refracted and removed from the story's origins.

Letters find the page one at a time, like fingers searching for a switch in a dark hotel room. Sometimes you can't find the light.

Outside, the grass bows to the rain and you cannot know if in submission or surrender. Either way, it is beautiful.

You are too old to be so reckless.

Once upon a time, the sun slipped through your windows like green rushing through spring grass.

The yellow squares heating the carpet were a warning you misconstrued in dogs lolling on their backs, pink tongues sprouting between sleeping teeth.

REMembering Dad

"You fucking coward! I hate you!" I scream over and over at my father.

I'm dreaming again, but it doesn't matter. I wake to the sharp bite of my fingernails digging into my heart lines, my cat, blinking and impervious by my side. He is used to my midnight screams, the sheets twisted and sweaty, pillowcase wet with tears.

The man's been dead sixteen years, and I'm still angry. Whoever said time heals all wounds must have suffered a minor scratch or got the equation wrong. What is there to do now but throw back the damp sheets, flip my pillow to the dry side, wipe my face, and turn my cheek?