Nothing much to say tonight.

The patio is fixed, at last,

By my labor once removed . . .

Daylight stretches longer than my legs

I’ve been reading again . . .

I’m staring at this page because I need to put something on it

Broke out the push mower and cut

The backyard before the rain comes

Tomorrow.

The air is filled with mayflies mating,

Flying crosses conjoined at the base—

Best sex dream ever?

I carry me

everywhere

like a turtle shell

Here sits the glass half-filled, the missing half

Already drunk or never poured—hard to tell

From glass alone. More evidence is required.

The current says Here I go, and

There I am

The first patio evening of the year,

And I am watching the clouds . . .

My Anglophile is showing . . .

Nearly 6 p.m. and still there’s light—

Dim and dimming, yes, but light

Nonetheless.

The earth is littered with the dead.

There is the myth that you’re never given

More than you can take . . .

Here is winter, throwing hook to skin

With each wretched blast, eyebrows

Caked in drizzle, the very sort of

Frosting I despise . . .

I can’t quite shake the cold from these bones

Or darkness from whatever passes for soul. . . .

Boxing Day 2022. As I write this, I am boxed in, stuck inside the house thanks to a couple of inches of new snow that fell this morning, topping off a layer of ice that’s been with us since Winter Storm Elliott moved in Thursday night. . . .