AWP was really nice -- met tons of wonderful, interesting people, and even more poorly dressed writers -- is it just me, or do half the poets need an extreme makeover?-- and pimped the hell out of Ping Pong, the journal I help edit. Hard to recovery and turn to the world of non-writers again. It feels like it was a dream. An expensive, very cold dream...

I am almost recovered from the AWP fever or plague -- sniffles and a general feeling of discontent. Here it is:

Home Surgery

he climbed into the sink, small fists in the tangle
of silverware, the messy oatmeal muck, while
she banged on the window beside the feeder,

creamy wax stuffed with tiny yellow pellets
and sunflower seeds, laughed as the cardinals
startled, filled the yard with flying red and husks:

the bleach bottle under the sink hidden by fake
yellow carnations, thread tangled in their dusty
stems, and how should she hold the needle,

watch Sammie like a hawk, she had said,
her mother, who had taught her to knot
the thread three times and bite instead of cut