Saturday night through lightning thunder pounding rain I slept like I was dead next morning I sit with coffee in hand and graze through the paper as water drips off the roof like tiny metronomes in the soft drizzle of dawn Seventeen killed overnight in Russian drone attack I step outside the mountain fog lingers unusually low to the ground like smoke with nowhere to go

If you were a duck chatting with a group of other slowly swimming ducks, with their ducklings all around, and another duck zooms by very close unnaturally fast, without either webbed foot moving, it jolts you, scares you and creates a wake that splashes on your just-dried and preened feathers how would you feel? See, I can’t even say E-bikes are for the birds!

she scrubs with a special paste inside the house of the mouth floors, furniture, walls, ceiling and all the crevices then a swish of water a welcome of fresh breath greets guests at the front door proud of those hellos, she smiles, dangling wet in the dark