every day a new malady,

television doctors scaring us,

the list of symptoms long.

These days I spend more time

looking in the mirror for the first sign.

Yesterday, the first feathers.

Today, gills.

CAS

Day 26

indoors in winter, a dry climate.
I think of Arizona, Sonoran desert,
the beauty in empty spaces,
flowers blooming in parched cracks
in the hard dry earth.

I reflect on my hands, and wonder:
will flowers sprout from the cracks
and fissures dry air creates
between my fingers, and
on my roughened palms?

Day 25

on the window sill
a large pink conch sleeps
until I raise it to my ear to hear
the shush of the sea as it breathes
molecules of shell, fine filaments of krill
and tiny silver fish that slide through surf
a million tiny butter knives winking