Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

Lately waking at an indeterminate hour, 
I know no one’s looking for me. 

I could walk across a bridge & back
or burrow in, king of my oscillating 

fan. Minutes sag like low branches 
in snow. I’m taking my adulthood slow, 

like medicine. Arranging flowers in a vase 
is something nice to do for yourself, 

that color rush, serotonin spike, even if 
they won’t survive the week. The cut stems 

stripped of function, the smaller griefs
in that. Like how my niece at night stands 

in her crib refusing sleep, eyelids fluttering
open, closed. Soon, all the world’s 

nieces will be old enough to want another 
earth, a second chance, as we warm 

by degrees. We’re at a boil now, over-
flowing with want. These are trying times. 

But time’s trying, asking us to stay awhile
longer inside the length of this moment.