Wise men say that happiness comes from wanting what you have,

yet I keep wanting what I don’t have, too,

and I don’t expect that to stop anytime soon.

I think wanting what you have is called gratitude.

It’s not mutually exclusive from desire.

There’s so much I crave, even while I’m counting my blessings,

awed and silenced by the enormity of my good fortune.

Still I want more.

Hunger is like that.

The belly stays full for only so long

before it cries out for the next meal.

[scs_alt]

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Once you’ve seen them dance in tutus,

it’s hard to accept that these twinkle-toed living boulders

are the cause of more human deaths

than any other African creature.

On safari, the guides carry guns more for hippos

than for lions, or alligators, or venomous snakes.

When a hippo charged up the bank at the tour group

my brother and sister-in-law were on,

the armed leader had to shoot it dead to save human lives.

I’m glad I wasn’t there.

A dead ballerina is a sad sight to behold.

[scs_alt]

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Sometimes you coax me forward and I dance

bright-eyed and busy-tailed

leaping and curious.

Other times you drag me,

kicking and screaming.

You’re the spice that flavors a new meal,

pungent, sizzling.

You’re the hooded spectre,

harbinger of loss.

A shapeshifter, a volatile stock.

I need you, yet I hate you so,

those sudden appearances when I haven’t had time

to vacuum and set the table,

showing up, so blasé, at my door.

You never did have any manners.

[scs_alt]

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It’s in the way my pulse quickens,

the way the inside of my skull feels larger than my head,

the catching of my breath.

Possibilities spread out before me,

seeds blown off a dandelion,

scattering on the wind.

Which one will I catch,

which eddy will I float on,

going who knows where?

I pick up my brush and load it with color

my skin turning inside out and outside in again.

If I didn’t need to be still,

I’d leap with joy

this very minute,

and that’s all the proof I need.

[scs_alt]

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It started with curiosity.

Plus a certain primal stirring.

You saw me onstage,

then somehow saw into,

through,

beyond.

But the glimmers I saw

weren’t enough to lock my gaze,

so I drifted away,

not knowing you’d hooked a line to my toe

and floated behind,

quietly

patient,

waiting for an opportune moment to

reel me in.

Waiting,

like a stone,

like a giant oak,

like the sky,

for me to finally

open my eyes.

[scs_alt]

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