#turkles

i dreamt of climbing the pine trees with too high branches. the cracks between the bark deep enough to get a toe hold going up. the feeling of skinning back down the trunk with feet squeezed against the trunk just so. angled to slow against the bark but not stop. raw hands. the look of the tree shooting up against me

this morning's rain slowed down to a nothing, but by the time i got my shoes on, it was back going hard. i fixed some eggs and toast and finished my book. i found a cherry coke i'd hid, against myself i guess, and i drank it. the storm lulls longer and longer but then it just whomps down again

yesterday, i drove my mom to get the hamburgers she's been asking for. i took her to eat them in a shady place by a little lake in a little pocket town that sits between the two counties. she tried to do the math on how long she's been back down here but she couldn't get to a number. she tried to figure off my brother's age but she got tangled up in all the different years. so i told her the number and she just said, well it went fast didn't it

the lines cut into the concrete looked like star maps or those charts of ocean swells wove with shells and ribs of fronds. i guess i only took the one half picture. when i went back they'd already been at it with hammers