Sara Wilcox

Sara WilcoxSara WilcoxSara Wilcox

Sara Wilcox

Sara WilcoxSara WilcoxSara Wilcox
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It's February, I'm Fine

Monday, February 1, 2021

oh, fine -  

I'll open the curtains

it's been two days, maybe three

the hedgebush was sneaking up on me

no one wants an everyday jumpscare 

from the innocuous and unchanged

and anyway

it's a lot of work to pull a curtain

sometimes


luckily, my quarantine adoptee is a pothos:

a plant fit to care for depressives

aren't we a pair


so - fine, then

I did it

you'd think the sky would 

reward me

for this achievement 

but NO

there is only the glowing 

grey blanket of midwinter


I would compare it to the color of the compacted snow 

where the mailman walks across the yard, but I see 

that the trench from his footpath is brightened 

and powdered


I wasn't aware it had snowed


anyway who cares



okay, FINE - 

I'll say the sky is like

the shade of the silver car next to me

the one owned leased or borrowed by 

the woman two parking spaces away 

in the lot at the park where we both 

look at our laps instead 

of the flat white disc ahead of us

what's in her lap, I wonder

a book? a pen? 

a lucky nickel dusting up lottery tickets?

I don't judge

her window is open and I'm over here 

wasting my gas on heat


I bet she's not bored or depressed

I bet she's just on her lunch break


a familiar rush catches my ear

an airplane takes off nearby

seemingly vertical and pasted on the sky

it too is grey and I begin to slip, to think: 

this life is a panchromatic set piece 


so I look forward to make sure 

this placid coin, this pale expanse

(fine, yes, a lake)

still exists, and there 

    - what

between the twigs and the trunks 

    - what moves

yellow

    - against the unyielding white?

why, it is 

an untethered

panting 

dog     


and I've been brought here to wonder 

how long it's been 

since I scribbled on a steering wheel


how long it's been

since "one more line"

"no, one more line"


it's time -

I buckle my seat belt

I shift gears to leave

and I wait for the silver woman

as she backs up behind me

and pulls away first

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