Analog Living

Swat flies with a Spanish fan
in the neighbor’s cattle pasture;
if the cows are dairy, tweak
an udder, aim for your coffee cup.

Plant a peony bush. Wait three years
for blooms.

Study neighborhood dogs.
Picture each as your lover—
napping, waking to gnaw your
collarbone, slobber on the pillow.

Learn to pull pennies from your ears.

Decide which of your character flaws
is your favorite, and why. Which
personal virtue should you jettison?

Drop to your knees in the back yard;
converse with all that crawls.

Check the silverware for tiny pits—
like January frost, tarnish appears
from nowhere, casts spells.

Paint the bathtub lavender.

Feel your pulse in your wrist,
in your long neck; explain
to your cat why it throbs.

Before you climb into bed,
write your best friend’s obituary.
Assume she lived nine decades
fully.

List everything that hasn’t occurred
to you. That still doesn’t.