We Are Breathing With Two Nostrils Now
We are breathing with two nostrils now.
That is my new way of saying
“We are cooking with gas now!”
And we are.
Four burners and a griddle,
a broiler and an oven,
but no vent hood for the days we fire them all up.
Maybe that’s why I had a headache.
(No, not carbon monoxide; we let that out the back door.)
My own body was going without a vent hood.
But we are breathing with two nostrils now.
Medicine
As we try to let food be our medicine,
we realize we may have been overdosing.
Drug abusers, especially over the holidays.
Listen to the rapid-fire voice at the end of the commercial:
“May cause upset stomach… lethargy…
May be habit forming.”
But please don’t stop taking your medicine.
Resolve
What is a resolution without resolve?
About the same as a resolution with resolve.
Resolve to be a better person.
Come on, just try it.
Pomegranate
She sat there, eating an entire pomegranate
(except for the pith and those few brown and cloudy seeds of course),
chewing each morsel enough for the juice to splatter against her cheek,
but not so much that she crushed the little seeds inside,
wondering how often to let herself indulge,
and how often to let the fruit stay in the land where the seeds could be of use.
To Be Better
I’m searching for something stimulating that will not wear me out,
for something I can smell through all the snot in my snout,
a way to escape the cold (both the sickness and the weather),
and, in a thought, (cough,) I just want to be better.
Contagious Thoughts
When all of your thoughts
turn to coughing and snot
and come flying out of your face,
they’re no longer profound
but they sure get around.
You wish it were poems in their place.
The Furnace
The furnace won’t stop running,
but since it’s negative two,
it seems to be doing just
what it’s supposed to do.
Cousins
After all the cleaning, painting,
fixing, sorting, moving beds,
the best part of your own space
is to share it with your friends.
Day Two
I’ll be here for a while
