You don’t have time.
It’s two p.m. and you haven’t yet
gone to the grocery store, answered those emails,
touched the dishes that fill the sink,
called the doctor, dealt with that deadline,
run laundry, run errands, run yourself ragged,
let alone
read like you meant to, exercised, meditated,
taken a moment for maintenance of self.
[...]
Councillor Ruddard: All right, we appear to have a quorum, so let’s proceed. I trust that you’ve all reviewed the brief—yes? Yes. Okay. We have one item on the agenda today. This is Resolution No. 5521: Toward Measures for the De-Extinction of—
[...]
By the third week of October, the mergansers should have come through in clean, predictable numbers, sharp-backed, precise, skimming the river like punctuation marks. Mary had recorded them for fifteen years, long enough that the column of figures in her notebook felt less like data and more like a calendar she recognized. She knew when to expect them the way others knew when frost would come.
[...]
In the evening around the dinner table, when you tell me I am too sensitive, the skins between the folds of my neck buzz and vibrate until they peel free. We watch them fly away on flaky, eczematic wings. You were just being honest. Someone had to admit the eggplant parmesan I’d made especially for you was too bland to be edible.
[...]