Discover my first Shopify code on this phone: Airbnb verification for a trip that I extended, to wander in a distant city without another person (solve a mystery instead, watch as lightning cracked the dappled screen above the Obra Dinn). Discover also a dream that I recorded in June of last year: bunkering indoors, in the country, while a bear terrorized us—me, an ex, her friends and family—charging wild and violent through the field. I wish I had listened to it, even if nothing would be different now. Another, more recent dream—a gentle one, working in the same room, an awareness of the other, a growing comfort. Then a sweet and gentle catch-up—happy only to learn what has happened in a life I no longer know. Woke up wondering if the dream had been mutual—an instance of two minds speaking what maybe, right now, can’t be said. But I know that not all dreams are visitations. Some are only messages from ourselves. This felt like acceptance, to go so far and no further. Now the Cancer moon is speaking, working things raw. I don’t know exactly even what I’m feeling. What it is about, what is trying to come out. I am trying to listen but some work only brings things more gently to the surface. Whether they breach it is another thing entirely. Some work never fully gets done. 

That’s okay. Took a long bath when I noticed that my heart was racing. Read something far from stilling—about Anna Mae Aquash and the Wounded Knee standoff. Even in the bath my heart wouldn’t stop beating. Afterwards switched coffee for chamomile. A move borrowed from Bolaño, though for different reasons. Today I might have skied but it rained all day. Listening to rain sounds as I write this. More water. More rain. Perhaps later more still will come. 

the patrol

we kept to the dense foliage
six of us engaged to reconnoitre

something had been lost—no one could say what
the moon shone like tipped gasoline 

returning every night no matter the phase
a mood shining wetly on the grass

what was new about it? I asked my captain
he replied only in low and mystical growling

the field spoke in intimate languages
we continued searching—was it ever there?

six of us who couldn’t remember

picking up strays—building a table and chairs on the first date
a basement apartment she disparaged—it’s nice—after Queen’s 
Gambit she pulls my head towards hers, so hard I’m reminded—
sorry for this—of her German grandfather sent (for good reason?)
to the Gulag—(who am I betraying?)—and in the river house—my 
dreams—what am I sensitive to—asking for forgiveness—what
more do you want from me? Kent’s kind of a loser—easier before 
waking to write letters, delete them, to listen to the whispers
something unformed, heedless, violent—an axe striking the tree
clearing the way—he measures every coffee grain, calculates
calories per gram, wets the paper first to remove its woodiness 
(nothing I have ever tasted)—I never want to be so careful—the 
difference between a relationship and something that’s ended
what you take for granted—imagine you already building towards
release—preparing to derail—on track—I don’t want what I see
here—every ended relationship better than this one—so what
is anything lasting—fixed entropy—another dream, an ex with 
a house—sells it for a tiny apartment—invites me to live with her
she’s going to do house shows—poetry, music—I can’t see it—
know it will be packed—hard to explain—living here would be
bad for me—from the roof, cord from the antenna dangling—
empty antenna stalk—who removed it—an axe striking the tree
if I meant so much to you—coughing now—why was it so easy

this time last year—pacing the bedroom to get cell signal
trying to keep my voice down—sound travels, ricochets
sometimes this house feels like nothing—somehow here 
I am lost—was, once, in the French national archives—beneath
posters from May ’68—can’t remember the slogans—something
about imagination something about the future—I have spent
too much time talking—I have talked too much—something
feels exposed in me, something in this house—sitting in on
the Zoom—three of us lined up on the couch—a business meeting
I spend the entire time wondering—what part of me has so much
trouble with this? what part is listening—this month last year
in the Owl’s Club a G-winning poet hooked their leg around mine
and asked me to come home with them—I said I still hadn’t
gotten over my ex, which was true—on Dovercourt felt released and 
sympathetic in the long shadow of some Futurist’s cool blue—
I’m always betraying what I say or think—another photograph
cluster of buildings downtown—I was trying to forget someone 
taking the light in—nuclear white at the top of just one building
always think God is touching down—the second season of Fleabag
plays in the other room—had a crush on a Catholic when it 
came out—but really a crush on some part of myself—something
I thought I was ignoring—light or passion or death—perhaps 
only death—perhaps nothing—reaching—into the light or towards
the brick’s phosphorescence

“selected for you,” December 21

portrait nothing like you are—stiff, propped up on pillow, except for some tension
wouldn’t know whether you were living or dead, orange striped comforter
ivy hanging behind you—not ivy exactly—tangled in the metal headboard

don’t recognize the staircase—leg over the body, two bodies
distant house. two bodies, one leg over the other, their tiny intelligences, their fur
—two bodies, recently buried (as far as my shovel would go)

the city—landscape—clouds, snow, bare trees, fog of an image of myself in the window
what was I releasing in this photograph, where was I taking myself
hanging over the field, worrying between two points

something sent to me—dense corner grown up that next spring—could once name the flowers 
now only colours, the bulbs we dug and stuck, spilling gasoline 
on my poncho, wrecking my boots in the muck—everything packed close
leaf-blower stirring the air

Holding still. Release the questions that I should not ask. Release the expectations that I should not have. Let the difficulty flow through me. I want to do what the Sage counsels. But I worry sometimes that I do not have the strength. Do not know what to do. How can I maximize the future? This is impossible. Losing what never was. Let it go. Release the future as well as the past.