This morning the sky is white.  Everything else looks gray: the roofs of the houses, the branches above them, the small birds and the big birds and the birds in between.  Today it will rain.  Tomorrow it will snow. How many grays will that be?

 March.  

There is a staleness in the air, like sawdust on a market floor.  It feels like walking in mudflats.  The weight of the year, the dishes in the sink, the unopened mail on the kitchen table.  

This morning I ate leftover mac and cheese with green hot sauce.  I am not sorry.

 Friday morning.  The heat is hissing behind me. 

Yesterday I heard a mourning dove. This morning nothing.

Wednesday morning.  I am not sure what day of this we are on, but it feels normal now, this slow waking, slow moving, slow starting each day.  It is the second or third sunny day in a row. A child is playing the trumpet upstairs. The cat is in the window.  Today I am trying to resist putting my houseplants out. It is too early. The front steps need painting. There is room for growth.

Going back.

I am getting used to the days.  Walking the halls I feel like some sort of spectator, like I am there to collect information on what exactly it means.  I feel my difference. The students don't look at me, don't look up, but the professors nod their heads, make eye contact, say hello.

I am finding places to exist.  The end of the hall only computer science students go down, with its bench in front of the heater, the sunlight shining through the dirty window.  Yesterday I sat there and ate my lunch.  I could see out the window three cops trying to help a driver get his car out of an icy parking spot.  I watched them push the car, kick the snow and ice, try to ease it out of its spot. They took turns directing traffic around their double-parked cars, lights flashing.  I would have yelled my advice if the window opened.  I just watched.  After ten minutes one of the cops found a piece of cardboard and slipped it beneath the tire. The car lurched free, then one cop stopped traffic to let the driver out.  They stayed there for a couple minutes, arms crossed, kicking the icy spot.

When the visiting nurse calls I tell her I am no longer part of the patient's care.  She is on her way, she says, to draw blood, and the other number goes to a message.  This is not her house, I say, even though it is on file as a number.  I will make sure they change it, she says. Wait, I say.  Please. Please don't change it.  It is the only way I know she is alive, these calls that a nurse is going to draw blood.  She calls me honey, you poor thing. Says she won't touch it.  I am going there now, she says.  Hug her for me, I ask.  She says she will.

This morning the harbor was full of sea smoke rising into thin air.  The house was warm when I got home, warm enough.  I did the things I meant to do: washed a sink full of dishes, swept a room, wrote a poem.  I was thinking of that last cup of coffee in the pot.  When I finally stopped to get it I found the pot empty, the coffee maker off.  I am nearly certain somebody snuck in and took it.

Free-hand embroidery inspired by Haeckel.