Saturday, January 31, 2026, -6.3* F, 56% RH, 0652
Eastern horizon an orange ribbon fraying into gray. I haven’t heard the rooster this year; I can’t recall the last time. Furnace exhaust shapes ghostly apparitions that fascinate only me. The three look beyond their scraped-out patch past fence of snow inside black chain links. When will we be able to run again? Roll in the dirt? Where’s the sun? The Giants put their heads on my shoulder when I lean over, when I say, ‘hug.’
Now comes the sun to my window. She doesn’t come inside to drink coffee or crunch a ginger snap. I dip them in coffee remembering it was hard candy that broke the facade of 3 teeth, each more amalgam than tooth. Repair possible maybe if I had been able to get an appointment. A year later the dentist pulled one, snipped the metal rod all that was visible of another, so it didn’t catch my lip. He wanted to pull them all. I needed to drive home alone. Oh, what would the photographer at my sister’s wedding have said about this? At the time he said, “Please close your mouth. You have a space between your front teeth.” Connie asked me later why I wasn’t smiling as she showed me the wedding album. It took one sentence from a stranger to make me self-conscious.
People may not remember your face, your name, but your words, your words they remember.
Photo: My Sister
