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.