January 30, 2024

one minute and 45 seconds

In the mornings, I rise from bed and get in plank position for one minute 
and forty-five seconds. I hold myself parallel to the ground, suspended. 
Certain days, one minute and forty-five seconds takes an eternity. 
Once last week, it was nothing—I hovered over the nubby rug, knuckles
relaxed, as the cat made figure-eights under my belly and I drifted somewhere
I’d forgotten existed, my body its own brief planet. When the alarm rings,
I always return to the room of my life, head downstairs for the rest of the day
to unfold—sometimes in breezes, sometimes in sweeping waves, sometimes 
in bitter greens, sometimes in dabs of honey. What matters is rarely the story
that goes from there, but the one I come back to, hands open, fingers outstretched.