Anything we have ever done or said has brought us here. Buttoning up our winter coats just to unbutton them. Cooling ourselves in the wideness of the roads. Drinking water in champagne flutes. Everything feels seismic these days. Funny you should ask what I’ve been listening to lately. Got back into the audiobook of The Odyssey, been enjoying Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of the Soul, I call my mother when it pleases me. Hunger is an important part of living these days. It confuses itself with desire. Just a slightly different gait, the laughter beginning in different spots of the throat. Knots in my hair from the way I sleep—indelicately. Last night I dreamt I wrote a song that made you laugh, dance, & weep. My hands on my belly, the night purring softly, willingly. Never had I slept so soundly. October has been good to us, has kept us moving—all our loved ones—October babies—I send letters to California—& we know we don’t deserve it. Pine air, peace of mind. Quilts from your childhood with that sense of déjà vu, & then erasure; romance, & then complacency. Roasted veggies with eggs for dinner & then breakfast. Sweaters, striped like birthday rice cake, limp on the bed. Tell me where it hurts. Unbutton your coat & drink tea on the couch with me. Vanilla taste, faint, from the park yesterday. We felt a strong sense of happening & I kept looking at, or for, your eyes. Xenia—we learned this in class—is Greek for hospitality—I have jars filled with the front yard, perched on stacks of books—between you & I our arms could hold so much. You saw the trees—I thought they might be redwoods but you didn’t—& wanted to walk between them. Zigzagging through the park, through the trees, I was certain it was October & the seasons were changing, they couldn’t help it.

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