I was happy for three-quarters of an hour on Tuesday: between the arrival of Shadow Hand by Anne Elisabeth Stengl and a letter in the mail and leaving for my brother’s last at-home basketball game of the season.
I’d spent the morning scrubbing the kitchen cabinets, but that wasn’t a matter of happiness—more like satisfaction and accomplishment. And even the basketball game wasn’t necessarily a gamebreaker; it was only a five-minute drive in, instead of the fifty or seventy-minute drives to the last four games over the past two weeks.

 Weeks passed and the daily routine became monotonous and I would try to come up with new and interesting things to do to pass the time. I noticed that the napkin rack was a jumbled mess and something had to be done with it. I could enjoy doing it too. Kenny told me I could fix it up if I wanted, so I set about my work.

    Well. It's a good thing I didn't get my hopes up about the job at the horse farm. The woman never called me back. When I finally called her, she said that the position was already filled by a young man, but thanked me for my interest. That was nice. Thank you for your intrest. My interest was to get the job and get the money from it. I had hung up the phone and looked down at it wryly. And I knew the kid who got it was probably the one who got his truck stuck in her driveway. It would figure. Anyway, then I had to look for something else.

These are two poems I wrote for my creative writing class. We had to take seven of the poems in our collection, and imitate them, seeing where we could go with it...

(imitation of Twilight: After Haying by Jane Kenyon)

“Summer Storm: After Planting”

Yes, the sun falls over

the sky’s arch; and yes, today

must give way to tomorrow;

what else could it do?

I walked briskly into the cafe, a good book in hand, and ordered a double shot of espresso. I took a deep breath, but that heaviness in my lungs persisted. You know the feeling. Its like there's a lead weight on your abdomen, making your breaths shallow and terse. Like when you get mad. Only I wasn't mad. I was frustrated, and afraid. Work had been pretty stressful, to say the least. I had gone in at five fifteen and it was only now seven thirty.

Dear God and Mary and every Saint,
Feel my forehead…am I going to faint?
Do the dishes, empty the sink,
What does one do when they can hardly think?
Annoying and gross, yes, that is true,
But I try and I do it all for You.
It may be dirty, it may be rough,
But I’ll do it anyway, to show You my love.

"How are you today, ma'am?" I asked her, and she smiled up at me as only a graying, seventy-year-old lady can. "Just fine," came her reply, and so I started scanning her groceries. She only had a few, and I knew it wouldn't take me more than a minute. Then she would be gone, like all the others who had come before her. We would intersect each other, and then go off again, as much strangers to each other as ever. But before I started, she stopped me to ask a simple question.