watch your step while exiting the plane

my open window brought a chill with this morning's sun. then the geese flew by, and with their honk//honnk//honnnking the memory of autumn, twinging, visceral. the weight of Things to Do, of no more open-swim, of school's return, the end of summer lovin'. the end of summer love. if July is 1969 then August lives off its breath until cornered by September, a brisk disco interruption to unshaved armpits and lax showers, dancing in the rain and "what day is it, anyway?"

where one is in the hospital again, and another has abbreviated in small-print his invitation for my Great Canadian Escape and I have nowhere left to run after months of frolic. wilderness. I yearn for wild. I yearn for my heart, who yearns for me, who says, don't run. stay with me. you always want to run when things get real. and, I love you still.

grad classes begin this week, my anchor(ite) to the outside, my bulletin board of Look, I'm doing something, my Be-Back-in-Half-an-Hour to the working world.

don't quote me on this, but perhaps with age what they say is true, about the loosening of anxiety. Not that It has up and gone by any means, but I feel the hint of one less layer on my shoulders. the pressure of the anxiety atop the anxiety, which my twenties has invited in with the dirt by way of leaving the door open, that wicked tickle of Potential draining from my fingertips like sand.

let it fall. the little mound remaining in my palm is all I care to work with these days. what do I need a handful, when a dusting will do. a dusting will do.

in case of an emergency landing