Joe

Old poetry: I began this in spring 2006, about a family who was a neighbor at the time.

Joe

Pat, pat, pat.
Of an average height,
an average guy
with an average life
plays coach for one tonight.

Leathery pat, pat, pat.
‘You gotta move, Joe.’

Part of the pack,
the puppy races
between the boy of eight
and the boy of twenty-eight,
keeping missed catches for herself.

Gravel rumbles with traction.
After    the   ball,  ball, ball.

Joe’s voice is his mother’s yet,
unaware, intentional.
He narrows his eyes,
throws himself into the air
and through the   b   a    l     l.

‘There you go!
Perfect throw, Joe.’

©Sandra Davidson 03 Feb 2008

A Nation in Birth|Death

This moment is vibrating, the formation of an event horizon.

Tonight I feel the tension before the birth of circumstellar disks, accretion disks, spinning matter in flat bands. Two disks occupy near space. One expands to spiral outward, colliding with and altering all it touches; the other spins debris inward, as if to a black hole.

Inauguration Eve ©19 January 2017  8 p.m.|Sandra R. Davidson

Spiraling In or Spiraling Out? [Image Credit: ESO/L. Calçada]

Feline Opine

A month shy of his third birthday.

Many friends know our cat, Murrpey, had blockages in his stomach and intestine, one half of a toy in each. Surgery was 13 days ago and he’s been on a diet of the same flavor of soft food for the duration.

At some point he figured out it was easier to feed himself than to tolerate syringe force feeding.

Preparing my husband’s coffee this morning, I catch the cat trying to bury his canned food as he might bury his waste.

After they remove his staples tomorrow, I predict the surprise return of dry kibble, which he prefers, is going to go over very well.

©2016 Sandra R. Davidson (text and image)

Blogger

I am still intimidated by posting myself to the world. There is no fear of criticism; I take the truth and leave the what does not resonate. The fear is in potentially and unknowingly hurting someone I know. And in knowing whether to post or publish. That particular murk gets thicker by the day.

Home Away from Home

Randy could see nothing exceptional in this man—a man at least twice their age. This made no sense for a survivor.

He slowly kicked open wide the driver’s door, his heart pounding against the constraints of veins. He tried to wet his lips with a dry tongue. What he wanted was a smoke. He’d quit tobacco three years ago and there was no one in the motel parking lot to bum a cigarette from anyhow.

Sweetly Sentenced

From behind, she snatched the soda pop can out of his hand with urgency enough to spray his clothes and the back of the couch.

“You know you can’t have regular colas—” She caught sight of the empty Drumsticks® wrapper on the end table. The pitch of her voice climbed. “Ice cream?”

She faced him. “You’re a diabetic. This stuff will kill you.”

He gripped in his fist the candy bar he’d opened before his wife’s unexpected return from errands. The chocolatey guts squished from between his fingers.

She stood back and crossed her arms, glaring as if he were her child. “What, have you got a death wish?”

He glanced away.

©2015 Sandra R. Davidson (Image)

Double Glazed

“It’s my job, Rick.”

“Whoa, they laying you off?”

“Nah, I’m good, I’m good.” James took a drag from the fresh espresso. “I’m on the phone with a person for a minute, two max—except today. Today I get a 20-minute window into this couple’s life. He puts me on speaker phone and walks around the house. This woman’s voice comes on. They’re laughing together trying to get the motion detector apart. The guy finally manages it and she’s, like, cheering.”

Rick nods in the slow quiet between them.

“I could use me some cheering.”

©2015 Sandra R. Davidson (Image)

Coffee and Conversation

Candied Coffee: Sweet, creamy with a touch of vanilla.

To engage the world and remain centered is difficult. I suppose I’m a realist, not glib or glum.

“It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out.” —David Foster Wallace

Plum Undone

When we first saw the property on which we now live, lovely white blooms were set against emerging green foliage, the tree of which graced us with thumb-sized plums of the right color but whose pits were nearly as large as the fruits! The leaves shaded one end of the drive and a portion of the master bedroom.

The dogs began to eat the fruit—pits and all—as soon as they fell ripe. You can imagine this was a painful lesson and one the dogs repeat at the first available fruit of each year. I also discovered the leaves were shot with holes, bugs and disease. The first year was enough. I wanted something that didn’t seed itself everywhere the chipmunks buried its fruit.

My husband wouldn’t hear of cutting down the tree, commonly called a pioneer plum. We added a Frost Peach and two Rainier Cherry trees near the plum. Sure enough, the pests infecting the plum thought our new additions were tasty.

With a redwood core and bark meat sandwiching a golden ring, the wood will make great art pieces as well as a sampling of plum-smoked edibles. Long live the cherries (and the peach)!

Masking Pain

Some days I am crying and alternately on the verge of tears, what doctors would label an eight out of ten, with ten being the worst pain.

Physical pain is an amnesiac.