December 3

geese
departing
in
imaginary
formations

It’s hard to write fiction these days. I blame this on the feeling that everything that’s happening is fiction—that we’ve walked sideways, or gone through a wardrobe, or dreamed ourselves into a world where you’re forced, every hour or so, to hit yourself on the forehead and mutter, “Where the hell am I?”

I ask
what they answer
chickadee

This part of the day—the mystified, head-banging part—is the only part of it that feels real. The rest is like the minute just after you wake up when you haven’t left the dream world but haven’t fully arrived in the real one either—when you look at your surroundings and want to weep because it isn’t the world you remember.

probably not forgiven yet grackles