
she wished for the most unlikely things

she wished for the most unlikely things

the grey fog was so thick,
the future was invisible

In the afternoons when i drive along the wooded path, I turn the music off and lower the windows. I want to hear the deer run across the woods, the leaves crunching beneath their black hooves. I want to see the hawk as it glides onto a lower branch, scanning the ground for small creatures. My breath becomes visible inside the car, the pup wimpers; my tires crush the ice with satisfying cracks and I drive on with the frigid silence embedded in my bones.

the marsh is frozen,
but then it thaws–
after several bitter cold days,
is solid once again–
and i can’t help but think how this pattern
is reflective of our little lives


as winter continues to unfurl in all of its cold, crystal beauty, we long for fields of wildflowers

on an afternoon walk in the rain,
her thoughts fell into pools of cold water
and melting ice

underrated: naps with friends

in her dreams, his warmth permeated the frigid air and melted years of indifference

“Increasingly, he bunked off school to paint out of doors. Claude hated school. He resented being trapped inside a building and told what to do, even for a few hours a day.”
from the book, The Private Lives of Impressionists, by Sue Roe

“I bury my face in the pillow that smells of must and damp. Its cotton slip is as cold as marble. It is only here, alone and in the dark, that I can allow those thoughts some rein. Thoughts that come from nowhere, from dreams, taking me delirious hostage. I long for sleep again, because only in sleep can I slip the bonds of what is possible and right. But as I have found so often in life, what you truly long for eludes you.”
from the book, The Tenderness of Wolves, by Stef Penney