I’m sorry, it’s not
okay,
everything is not okay.
I am not fine. Sorry.
And maybe that’s not okay.
Maybe that’s a
problem, it’s a problem for me to not be fine.
This being not okay.
Or maybe it’s just fine.
This being not fine, not okay. This being a
problem.
What I keep hearing out the living room
window mornings of late is the lumberyard
about a half mile or so away from where I
grew up. Which, when
things were quiet,
when, say, classes were in session at the
elementary school one block east of the
backyard swingset, and there were no
Fort Chaffee artillery drills transpiring
near Potato Hill (which rose from
a slight haze [light blue-ly]—like
one-half of a modest bustierre—about
a mile south of the backyard garden),
was audible from anywhere in the
backyard, say down by the grape arbor
near the apple and peach trees (three
apple and one peach, like the four
of us: three boys and a girl), a
morning-to-early-evening
repetition of an elongated
buzz (fifteen seconds or so)
followed by the methodical
thud .. thud .. thud
..
the muffled staccato
of the fresh boards—
Paul Bunyan’s toothpicks—
being stacked .. stacked .. stacked.
It’s done .. I’m sorry .. I am not okay ..
