We’ve had two weeks of dry cold and I was surprised how clean the snow stayed for that time. Fewer people out and about, I suppose.

The roof on one of my little greenhouses caved in. The birdbath is a tiny skating rink. My yard looks like abandoned fairgrounds.

And Leonard keeps eating snow. I hear myself say, “Don’t do that you’ll get worms.” I have no idea why I say it. I know dogs can get worms, but I don’t know how. And as I am saying it, I am not even thinking of dog worms, or worms of any sort really. The phrase just escapes my mouth.

The more I think about it, the more it puzzles me. I tend to say things to Leonard – or in front of him – that I would never say in the presence of another human. Unfiltered little missives from my subconscious.

“This book really sucks.”
“What do you think you’re doing with my sock?”
“Don’t you think E. should have come home by now?”
“I shouldn’t drink so much wine.”

Or maybe these aren’t the product of my subconscious at all. Maybe they aren’t meant to make sense. Maybe it’s a kind of singing. Random phrases without content. Snatches of melodies. Like the effortless work of modeling an infant towards speech. Noise and air. Pitch and volume. A grocery list can be a lullaby. So can a rant about how someone else never takes out the trash. Self-soothing. No deep psychoanalysis. Proximal neuron-paths, hopping electric associations.

I sound like my grandmother, never. But sometimes.

Sometimes there are words
like prepare and brush-your-teeth
with mushroom fullness
that take me back and forward
in time, melting like the snow