vermont : new york

home to $7000 in emergency bills but
cheered by my stolen kitten huey curled into my side

the heat in oakland is stifling
& they tell me lasts all winter

i’m craving winter and cold in a primal way, needing
seasons to make sense of the cycle of life
how can i stand another year here, in this climate i’ve never adjusted to
i want to run back to the forest, turn my cheek to
the ground and breathe in the way i did as a child when i was scared
which was pretty much always

i hiked the paths i used to as a child, secret goblin roads
to ancient spirit journey places
streams that kept me safe
now so far away

& then the last day in manhattan i found it impossible to believe that i would
get on a plane and leave this city
when i walk through it i am my grandmother in 1921

or her sister

or 70 years earlier, my great great grandmother in tenement flats, fresh from budapest.

it is the city itself i want to run away to, not the new shops with clothes no one can afford,
not the groups of kids in their chosen uniforms, or the cupcake absurdities
or the streams of people, not the $16 old-fashioneds, not the clubs or the status;
but the buildings themselves. the caked layers of wallpaper and wheat paste
keeping their stories safe until they have the breathing room to speak again

when people are ready to stop moving and listen.

in the woods i had the luck to play with the most beautiful babies on earth

and new lovely ones
to have amazing conversations with friends
who offered up the most amazing feast
delicata squash, pomegranate meatballs, stuffed cabbage, baked camembert, & the most delicious borscht

to say goodbye to dublin who tucked her wide dog back against mine
in bed on some of the coldest days
she is buried the way she always slept
with her face to her favorite part of the yard.