Poetry slides in.

I don't really like it when people make a big deal about the weather.
as if life is only good under certain conditions.

It's raining and grey someone will complain,
completely oblivious to the subtle shifts of light,
 a new palette of smells, all the action in the sky.

The clouds are always moving here
they are the busiest part of the city sometimes

The wind picks up

a mist of water covers everything

a sudden change in temperature

the plants lean in

We love the sunny days
Summer is the best kept secret here
I can't wait for summer,
let's go do something,
did you do something
did you enjoy it
I hope you enjoy it

as if sun shining on grass was heaven or something.


This one's for my blood brother

Blood is no surprise to me

My brother and I grew up with blood

our daily ritual almost.

It would come streaming from our noses.

watery and gushing
so bright you almost expected it to be pink
moving quickly
a line down a shirt
a smear on a thigh
dripping into your sock
someone will panic to see it move so fast.

often we let it drip splat down into dark puddles
that would splash our legs
drying into inky dark shapes like no other liquid could.

And later we'd find spots of it
on a cheek, under a thumbnail
dried like dye
licking our finger to smoodge it into a watery mess
swiped with the inside of a sleeve

It happened so often we knew when
to feel that heavy sticky thickness in our nostril or the back of our throat
pull the tendril free to feel it's slippery warmth between our fingers

We knew tilting your head back never worked
we knew sometimes cotton balls under your lip helped
and we learned from a fireman that pinching your nose just below the eyebrows was supposed to help, but rarely did anything.
We knew that blood hitting water in the tub was the prettiest.
Often my brother would just calmly pack his nostril with tissue so he could continue playing.
red blooming into white.

All that blood made us comfortable with it, confidant even
and it was no surprise to me when my brother went to Iraq as a medic
or handled other people's blood as an ambulance driver after his tours.

Blood was no surprise to us.