Filled with the year so far, addresses, names, the hard, the impossible, a list of groceries still waiting, notes for a book about leaving, this purple notebook almost left behind but found in time to be thrown into the car, on top of clothes from the last closet, the closet door opened quickly as quickly as a mouth gasps open, or wraps itself around the hill and valley of a spoon, or grasps a prayer please please before the spoon lifts, the hand shakes, the curious brain whose nearsighted and afraid eyes read words in the notebook on the table at the new house, while the mug of tea leaves a wet circle of O that will stain the purple notebook now away from the table, now on a shelf near the front door then orange persimmons on my porch in the morning and the young dog stares at me unable to turn away.

Carol Ellis
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