20/52: deep dusk

It is deep dusk
with just embers left in the sky

the humidity has already begun to settle
on the grass

born again as droplets
now on my feet.

The evening damp of a New Hampshire
August night

is something entirely different
than what we have left behind

in Texas.

18/52: not tonight

how did the water get on to the counter by the sink?
set aside that I've been washing dishes for the last hour -
I didn't put it there.

It's a puddle
snaking around like some country dreamed up
by a colonial conquerer wearing a hat
with a big feather
straight in from the 16th century -
he hasn't even taken his muddy boots off
before trodding in to the kitchen.

It's a bent thing that is not supposed to be there -
an Easter Island head
that has grown up from under the formica,
a little froth on the side of its mouth.

I'm tired
and unwilling to give into this harassment.
I'm not giving up the towel
to this interloper. Not again.

Not tonight.