It�s the tenth? Of November? What?

Today my only goal is to keep the lid on the rising panic. That is it and that is all. To that end I will work my tail off here at the working place and I will listen to all manner of talk radio and I will not think. I haven�t seen hide nor hair of Harold in two days. Since Friday night, I think. God damn it. God fucking damn it to fucking hell. I don�t want to talk about it or think about it or anything about it. Not yet. I�m still pretending this is all part of normal cat behavior and that he will come strolling up the porch steps at any moment. At which point I will grab him and pet him very nicely and never ever let him outside again. Not ever. Miss Blue has recently been so sequestered.

It�s motherfucking cold. And Frankie was up all night last night and the night before with diarrhea, which was really terribly fun. Of course, Jeff had most of the fun because I sleep through everything. Shucks.

What else. I didn�t call my mother back, I thought that Matrix movie (numero dos) was very silly, my lips are chapped from the cold, we made chili and cornbread, we played with dogs, we read (me: finished Wings of a Falcon, started Elske; Jeff: Life of Pi), made the best hot chocolate drink in the whole world but then realized that it was so good one could only drink about three sips of it before one could not drink anymore (it had all kinds of chocolate and soy and cayenne in it�it was a taste sensation!), did some cleaning, did some working, did some dreaming.

I am thinking of this Margaret Atwood poem, meanwhile remembering our conversation this morning in the one warm room in the house, with all the dogs around us, before you went back to bed, before I went to work, before I gave in to all this worry and wo.

Variation on the Word Sleep

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.