in cracker crumbs. unsteady tidy.

on my kitchen table a shoebox tidy with cupcakes and the bottle of wine you gave me sit. i read that poets reading their own work on npr's all things considered collection in the bath, as well as sundry other compilations of 'the younger generation of poets.' what is that.

my skin curls with cracks, the heater hacks and sniffles in anxiety. the bed too much, flattened, dead dishpan hands. knucklebones still white. notebooks not nearing yours, woolf's in minuteness, lucidness (not lucidity), sheen and brilliance; frivolity--or-no? see: weather, obsessive detail in tea and food. well. food maybe.

what even noxzema (sp?) commercials can't comfort--if growing up could be easier (?). those phone calls. swill. swelling. swill still swelling, steadying...then.