What's on Your Mind?

Three chairs and a table that I've always intended to paint. The tree that is sprouting new leafs and shedding old ones, not more than a stick when we first placed it there beneath the blue clothesline. Autumn in Oregon, the skeletons of summer, the last of the red leaves gasping in the gutters while the palm of dead winter turns the window glass to ice. Another cigarette, the possibility of sleep, obstinate poverty, the question of love, unsaid words too late imagined, of untold, untellable, uncomfortable depth. Fear and surrender, perpetual passion mitigated by small spaces. The last things, the final things. The laughter of a fountain that I cannot see and the mouse that just ran under the kitchen counter. That's what's on my mind. And so, goodnight.