July 16, 2024

A note: Poems often come to me in what my friend Laurie calls “story slices.” They are little bits of narrative that, despite their brevity, can actually carry a thought or an idea in a surprisingly complete way. They almost don’t need anything else because they hold a kind of gravity all by themselves. In other words, they can say a lot by not saying very much at all. Sometimes, Laurie and our friends Sherry and Kirsten gather on Zoom just to speak aloud a few of our story slices. They are a way of filling each other in about the goings-on of our lives, since we don’t get to see each other much. I encourage you to try it! 

fragment

At the meeting, I used the word “parenthetical” and Pam trotted out “mimetic,” 
and I was so pleased that, despite the feeling that everything was millimeters
away from falling apart, we could still take time to say these things. Lunch
was a turkey sandwich from the co-op, where I made an impulsive purchase 
of a small bottle of grapeseed oil. Between printing labels, I soaked my feet 
and cut out a pattern to make a 3-dimensional paper kingfisher. The humidity 
made it difficult to think about anything other than swimming. There was 
a Narcan training at 4; both women seated behind us had lost their sons 
less than 3 years before. It’s amazing how distance collapses with a hug. 
The fan is on and the day is drifting to a close. There’s a poem here, somewhere.