The Ongoing Poem Cycle About The Winter of 2006 Continues Like This

January 17, 2006
On Martin Luther King Day we slept late

went to the grocery store
took a long walk
I had a bath
then we cooked dinner
and curled up early in bed

We’ve been doing a lot of cooking
and going to bed early lately
due to the dark days
the shortness and wetness and coldness of them

beef stir fry a couple of times
in the last couple of weeks
and brussels sprouts
and several soups
and a lot of leeks

making our grocery list we realized we’d run out of all kinds of staples
buying things like mayonnaise and nuts and rice
always makes me feel like a grown up
like a family
we filled the market cart all the way to the top
lots of dairy
couscous
the red hot sauce with the rooster on the bottle and the pointy green lid
I’ve always wanted that stuff

Our afternoon walk was straight out Larkin
all the way to Lombard
and back on Hyde
talking about the books we’re reading as we strolled along

I’ve got Persuasion for
I believe
the fourth time
one of only about three books I ever do re-read
and have been noticing this time around
the little things
like how Anne likes the melancholy of autumn at Kelinch
and Lady Russell likes the wet winter street noises of Bath



image by Elizabeth Graeber