I bought this scruffy poet cardigan
with a big ole stain on the cuff
because it has a professorial pattern
and because it already had a big ole stain
which means it’s safe from spoiling by me,
having already been spoiled by someone else.
Does this sound defeatist? To me it’s relaxing,
the stress of ruination removed by the simple
presence of a big brown smudge. I love you,
big brown smudge! Were you car grease or paint
or pigsweat? Who cares! I’ll eat my stew
with you, I’ll sit at work & cast no sweat
upon this perfect, ugly, poet sweater.
Tag: winter
Frozenpoem (mine).
It’s so cold today I’m wearing a sweater vest
over a sweater. And it was so cold yesterday an egg froze
underneath my chicken’s butt! Plus one hen won’t go home
and now lives beneath the porch; it’s so cold she might
be dead, and if she’s not: props, sister. Tonight
the temperature will dive so low it’ll limbo underground
and after that, who knows: maybe the freeze will set
so deep into the ground the earth will send a message
to the moon that reads: that’s it, I quit, I’m comin’
over for a visit. Inside the house, one of our windowpanes
is covered in ice cuz it’s our first winter here & not everything
is sealed all nice & tight. Oh, well. Oh, hell. Maybe
we’ll shave that window ice with a razor blade and use it
for our cocktails! Maybe I’ll scoop the moonlight off
the frozen snow and add it to my hair! I’m wearing too many
sweaters to care what anyone thinks of me & my windows.
Suffice to say: winter’s landed like a bigass prehistoric bird
and I will stay as far from her beak as I’m able.
Fur coat in February (includes photographs).
I was given a fur coat for my birthday this year (by my mother-out-law, who gives amazing presents–raw silk scarves & notebooks & dark chocolates & the most pristine and gorgeous hand-me-downs). I’m not here to give my opinion on fur, mostly because I’m not sure of my opinion on fur. But this is what I do know. This coat is a beauty. This coat is so warm that when I walk outside in it, I feel like I’m still inside. It covers my entire body and it is both warm and beautiful and utterly deluxe. Here’s a picture of me the day I was given it, which was a very very snowy Saturday, a day I was not expecting to leave the house but then I did and wonderful things happened.
Today I wore the coat outside to let out the chickies. The chickies had no sense of my my unnecessary glamour, but they were pretty pumped to hop up and out of the coop. Tomorrow, I’ll wear it to a black tie Academy Awards party downtown, which I am attending mostly so that I can wear my new fur coat. Also for the company. Also for general deluxeness, which is scarce in February in Vermont.
And soon friends will arrive in Vermont & it will be my birthday & I will wear the fur coat again. And then spring will come & the snow will melt revealing the hidden garlic & I will be twenty-seven & eager to plant things & eat them. And the fur coat will hang graciously on its soft pink hanger, waiting until I need it again.
***
Photos by Misha, who else.
panache, perhaps 