For Linda

He slept late, because he was in his own bed under a mountain of down. Finally crawled out from under, driven by the need to pee and the longing for a tall glass of juice. The house is cold, but not deadly, 48 degrees. He dresses in sweats, pulls on the hat she knitted for him, back when he was homeless and she was a nun. A juice cocktail, equal quantities of orange, pineapple and grape. He drinks 16 ounces, while he starts afire in the stove, and makes a triple espresso. He needs some wood in the house, so he pulls on Carhartt overalls right over the sweats. He stretches and bends a bit, stokes the fire, goes out to the woodshed to split some kindling and chop up an old oak chair for small stuff. Back inside he eats beans and a fried egg on toast. The clatter of sleet interrupts his second cup of coffee, first- smoke reading break. He's reading Idries Shah, "The Commanding Self", a very good book on Sufism. His first words of the day, muttered to the end of a glowing cigaret, are: 'I agree with that'. He watches the sleet sublimate off the front deck. It disappears without leaving a wet spot. Between small weather events, he walks out to the graveyard, looking for fox sign. Now that the dog is gone, he hopes she'll return and they could pretend the dog never happened. Though there are pressing problems, he chooses to ignore them. He is taking the day off. He orders some books, from the Daedalus remaindered catalog, including "Talking Hands", a book he's read several articles and reviews about. A Bedouin village in Israel, where everyone speaks a sign language that is unique to them. The language people are all over this. He keeps up with theories of language, and has some opinions of his own. Splits some wood, just a few rounds, and carries a couple of replacements to the woodshed from down the logging road, where he'd stashed them. He thinks about his parents, in their final times; neither of them wanting to let go, at this point, of the other. They are so tired. His eyes leak a little, but maybe it's the wind, a gift from St. Paul; or some stove ash, from stoking the stove. There are tears on his face, is all we can say, from this far away, it could be glycerin or even those little fake diamonds glued on for effect. It's probably a good thing he didn't have to talk to anyone else today, because he had the look of incoherence. Walking in the woods, he stopped several times, looked up and down, to the right and left, turned completely around and looked back at where he had come from, making sure he knew where the house was and how he had gotten to where he was. Backtracking, as it were, with a sequence of images, instead of the usual beans or corn or trinkets or broken branches. It seemed, at times, as if he was trying to get lost. We have our people on this. Then he walked down the driveway, watched towhees in the leaf litter off to the right, but then a gray squirrel caught his attention, up in the woods to the left. He seemed distracted. I'm pretty sure he was: oh, fuck, wait, who am I? He wished there was a diner where he could go, close by, where he could just eat breakfast and read the paper. Not think about he and I and we; I don't need to give you any pointers, you have me in spades. I only meant that in the best possible way, that you trump me. I would never have anyone else change my diapers. I swear to whatever god you prefer. I (he) can't buy any of them. At Janitor College there was this one dude, a total asshole, he came in from the high school program, full of promise, our basketball team was suffering, and he could dunk. He was great, triple doubles, then he was killed, when a beam fell from the ceiling. Luck of the draw. He often complained that the light was wrong. I've wondered about that, ever since. Could we agree there is a lot of snow? We really should agree about something. You and your twitter.