*
Text:
If You Were Looking for a Sign, This Is It
Yesterday was hard. The day before yesterday, hard, too.
Somehow, something about today has made it soft. Not the unrelenting
blankness of the December sky. Not the pain in my teeth, or my hands, or my aching heart.
Not the electric bill. Not the contagion. But the messages from grocers, snow-shovelers,
thanking me for supporting them. Them, who keep my body and home
when I can’t push a shopping cart or stand up in the shower. And
the pileated woodpecker glimpsed
—!
through the window of the dentist’s office. The hygienist
turning to follow my fingers into the shadowy pines. The rich red
brushstroke of the long bird’s long crest. The bright, matching threads
of my blood—right quantity, for once, and right reason—gliding
down the little white drain. The dentist reminiscing
about the owl he saw once. The spindly green
overpass graffiti urging us all
to K E E P G O I N.
*
Photo by me.
