new flowers, Mark Rothko

stuff like that

Last week it was 60 degrees for the first time in a whileee and I took a long walk in my shorts and felt the summer on me. It was a good feeling. I have a couple quotes I wrote down from this panel I went to in my notes app. The notes are, “Poetry as a means of overcoming temporality,” and, “When the kaleidoscope clicks into the right pattern and she understands that she is connected to all that is and has been and will be.” I think it was Eirinie Carson who said that—she was stunning. I have been thinking about oneness, border, time as a border—temporality, grief. God. Love! Writing poems as I always do.

Thursday night well it feels too personal to describe. The morning after I walked through the city and rode the train home and that felt personal too. Friday afternoon I walked to the art museum to find ekphrasis. Mark Rothko again—I always come back! I hadn’t realized that that was what it looked like. Endless dance of border and whole. Skin, skin. Do you get it?? I don’t think you do. Every time I look at a Rothko I see something different. Mostly it’s about the border. The red and pinkish-orange-white felt like me and S when I leaned on my arm above her. Separation, border, oneness, whole.

New flowers for my room. Telling J my favorite poet is Frank O’Hara but really I say something different every time. How that time it really did feel real. E saying I seem like I would have a substack - lol! Then I reread my posts and imagined them from her perspective. More Frank than I had thought of myself to write. When I told J Frank O’Hara she said, Lana Turner has collapsed! Oh Lana we love you get up.

Fought with L but only mildly. Fought with other L a lot. Found a container of chai in the back of a drawer. Made C chickpeas and banana bread and we ate them on my floor. T and I are going to cook together soon. I’ve been editing her poems, which she says aren’t very good. It’s hard to edit someone else’s poems. I’ve tried to edit her plays too—she considers herself more of a playwright than a poet—but I pretty much only read Shakespeare and Lorca so my references are a bit off.

The flowers are purple. To help with her poem I sent T Kaveh Akbar and Alejandra Pizarnik, because she likes god and pain. I had forgotten how much I liked both of them and it was nice to be reminded. Both S and J loved Martyr! which I see as a good sign. I’ve been doing yoga nearly every day, yesterday I kept doing headstands and saying look at meeeeeee to L. But I like the type of movement it requires, I think it’s good for me.

Suddenly I’m excited for spring. I think I’m ready for it, so.