I have successfully eluded June, or she me. Who was in hiding? Who was the stalker? Who hired a private detective & who stole her own identity & threw its ashes into the sea? June & I----oh, we pretended we didn't know each other, but we were carrying on a secret affair, with code words and messages left in empty wine bottles, written with invisible ink on papyrus. We rented a hotel room for thirty days & kept the do-not-disturb sign hanging, stealing fresh sheets & towels from the carts & sliding tips for the maids under the door, sneaking in & out via the service elevator. An hour or less sometimes, the proverbial quickie, & once a full week of lounging skin to skin. We met in forests & on the blank pages of journals. We sent each other crypt0-erotic emails & detailed business plans. Transactions. Intersections.
Who was Laurel & who was June? We couldn't tell each other apart. As we embraced & picnicked & sang in the (thunder)shower, so many things blossomed around us. Then, suddenly, she was gone. All that is left is the bouquet, the scent of the flowerings, the petal potpourri:
first & second place in poetry for the NCCCR Artist's & Writers Quarterly
first & second place in fiction
Roger Dutcher, the editor of the Magazine of Speculative Poetry, emailed me & asked me to send poems &, by the way, did I own the artwork on my blog & did I ever do black & white & would I be interested in doing cover art
Diane Severson Mori, who has a show called Poetry Planet on the podcast StarShip Sofa, sent me a link to her first segment, which included a poem of mine (Emily Dickinson never) & asked for more poems on time travel
got notification from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that "egg horror poem" has re-upped for next year's 9th grade literature textbook
sent poems &/or stories to 5 or 6 magazines
wrote a bunch (can't count that high, not enough fingers & toes) of poems & a short story that may become a longer story or may stay the creepy little jewel it is now
sent off my state privilege license for "The Art of Healing" so I can officially practice my energy work
did a bunch more reorganizing on my room, including some deep paper work, some surface shining & much more--plus retained enthusiasm for the next wave & am keeping up with maintenance
re-instituted the "lifting weights most even-numbered days" plan
watched movies, played poker, took walks, drew pictures, cooked great food, felt great joy, thought great thoughts, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. (That could be enough etceteras to cover the rest of my clandestine affair with June...)
Blog alternative:
211. Sneak off & have a delicious secret affair with a day. Tell no one. (Well, you can tell me...)
