Katherine's Coffeehouse

Day seven, warm rains still come, speckled deer restless and asking to nurse,

We hadn’t known she could scream. Glass shattering wail through slats of a muzzle, two techs holding her down,

Or I could write about white-tailed doe, baby of the family still trying to suckle,

I stumble into it, on it, living room jumbled, Lego under my foot— dark because someone actually turned off the lights.

Seventeen days. That's when I will have told him I'd schedule the doctor. It's a goal.

And if you ask me what it is to age, I will tell you what I heard from snapdragon,

Once, I killed a fish. More than once, if you count the 22 goldfish I accidentally overfed before the ick took over,

Today is again a tight uniform, starched collar against us

I am determined to start this day with poetry.

There is nothing neat about it.