By Wrigley, Day 5

My Neighbor
April 5, 2009

My neighbor is a canine
He is fluffy and big
As tall as a four year-old
Even wearing a wig

Day 10

let me be your instrument
April 10, 2009

lay your fingers
on my wrist
and thrum my tendons
like silver coiled
strings

lay your lips
to my ear
and fill me with fog:
leave me lost in
my own veins

let your heartbeat
be my drumbeat:
march me to the
precipice and
teach me to
sing.

That is not a typo ...

the story before
april 9, 2009

don’t know if i’ve told you this story before,
probably have:

it’s the one that begins in the jungle
with the succulent flowers,
the carnivorous flowers –
the ones that find you succulent –
it’s the story that begins in the
fragile spaces between the lion’s teeth.

you remember, right?

it’s the story told in greens so vivid
they’ll eat you alive from the inside out
and reds so sweet they sing four-part
harmony, the story told in tangerine
and lemon and fruits unnamable.
In the end, all the colors have pooled
into muddy puddles, and nothing
but black and white drips
from the jaws of the lion.

you know?

it’s the one where i was the hero and
you were the damsel in distress,
or maybe i was the hero in distress
and you the damsel who rescued me from
the crippling heights of my delusions.
you cradled my head in your arms,
lullabied me with A-weeema-weh
and the lion slept that night indeed.

i don’t know if i’ve told you this before,
probably have:

it’s the story about the fear
that is not my own, the courage
I held on loan, the love
we might have known. it is the
story before the story before
the story i’ve told you before,
unkempt and untamed, feline
and feral. it is the story that begins
in the jaws of the lion and
ends in the middle of a

Day 8

Christie didn't bring her camera to Wrig's most recent horseback riding lesson, so I had to do this:

mare and foal
april 8, 2009

cocoa and cinnamon,
up to the fetlocks
in mud.

side by side, she nestles
around him, a cove
curled against a storm.

she nips at his forelocks
and he shies, annoyed.
tail flicks once, twice.

heavy headed, stiff necked,
he scuffs his withers
against the paddock,

eying the horizon.

No more apples for Wrig

Wrig lost one tooth yesterday and one today. We were wondering if the tooth fairy will come by on consecutive nights.

Day 7

Opening Day
April 7, 2009

In the grand (slam) scheme of life,
a solid line drive to center
is no more significant
than a single blade of grass
or a breathless puff of chalk –

a clean base hit is neither
medicine nor economics,
politics nor jurisprudence,
penance nor forgiveness –

but when the sun reflects
off my glass just so,
when the afternoon is as
endless as a clear blue sky
and obligations just as distant,

there is nothing more significant
than a single blade of grass.

Day 6

being of sound mind and body
april 6, 2009

when i feel the grains of sand
in my marrow bones,

i will

woo you with arithmetic
with the mystery of endless sums
and the supple arc of geometry

i will

fill my lungs with the sharps and flats
of your chromatic scale and exhale
love songs the color of maple trees

i will

snap arthritic hands
off grandfather clocks,
and make a sundial of my spirit

i will

defy those grains of sand
and these fickle marrow bones.

Day 5

impatient
april 5, 2009

he calls this

the season of
about to happen

buds to burst
babies to birth
blessings to become

tensed and tired,
sleepless, eyes
eager and wide,

he aches with the
exertion of trying to

make things happen