January 7, 2026

dear Candace

If it hadn’t been for your note, I would have completely forgotten that yesterday was Tuesday. How strange, after more than 20 years of a dedicated weekly poetry practice, that it would just slip my mind like that. So when you asked, “Is there a glitch?” for a split second I thought maybe there was something wrong with your inbox. But then, wham! I looked at the date on the upper right-hand corner of my computer screen and sure enough it says “Wednesday,” and it kind of blew me away that the whole day had passed yesterday, and nothing in me had piped up and said, “Hey, don’t forget to write a poem.”After what seems like such an automatic, habitual thing—like brushing my teeth or programming the coffee or giving the cats their morning treats—that my brain would just, you know, skip over it. But already today I spaced on a meeting I had downtown, so maybe there’s something in the water. Or maybe it was something in my subconscious that didn’t want to write yesterday, that the synapses simply made the decision not to fire. Maybe it’s better they didn’t—I was having, as I told my friend Sherry, a “schmoopy” day, which is kind of like how it sounds. Somewhere in the middle of it, I decided to put on a workout video on YouTube, and for 20 minutes, I lifted my legs and arms in a pantomime of purpose. The people in there workout video were very supportive, cheering me on when I was halfway through, then clapping in my direction when it was all over. Maybe I could have written a poem about that, if I’d remembered it was Tuesday. A poem about small acts of celebration. Or the humor of seeing my own body bobble, trying to follow the on-screen choreography, and how three-quarters of the way through each step, I let my own guard drop. The relief of not pretending to be better at something than I was, and leaning in with my ineptitude instead. There was a poem, surely, in the fact of a “schmoopy” day—grey skies, grey everything—but how lunch was a circus of green, and how I might have eaten a little more broccoli than anyone would recommend. A poem about waving a little fist in the direction of agency and hope. What I mean to say, Candace, is how there is always a poem, even if there isn’t a poem. That liminal space where the gears still whirr, however meekly. Where the lines are wobbling on their legs and the heart is asking itself what it wants. But Candace, you should know that your note was a poem of its own, full of good questions and concern. If there was a glitch, thank goodness for it, because it was the one that brought you to the table to say hello. The one that has me here, now, saying hello back.