Laundry list

There is this point in which words flee us, abandon us. They are unable to combat the piling on of tasks, tasks, tasks.

It is Wednesday, and I look about my wrecked house, there are half-unpacked suitcases from three trips ago. A hamper filled to the brim, overflowing really, with clothing. I have no panties to wear. The electricity was out last night. I tell myself that is the reason that I didn't manage (again) to go to the laundry 500 feet from my door. It could also be because someone stole my bike trailer, which no longer served as such but as my make-shift laundry cart, but that would be a mildly lame excuse.

I could make it another week, if it weren't for the underwear.

In the newly cleaned car, cleaned in the morning, at the ranch that we will never see again, in the patch of freshly mowed grass, four foot grass that I mowed with love, and a bit of obsessive zeal, sweating and pulling the cord once, twice, three times before the motor would restart each time it choked, I found the frozen berries, now unfrozen, but still fresh in their stained cooler. There was a bright purple patch on the floor where it leaked. I thank myself that it is my car, not a man's, no one to get angry for my carelessness, my forgetfulness, my destruction.
I smile at myself because I pay my own bills and I ask nothing from anyone. There is something quite pleasant in that freedom. Ask nothing, expect nothing, and you will be denied nothing. Seems like a good enough rule for now.

So the berries are now simmering on my stove, with a dollop of mezquite honey, and a splash of orange liqueur. I would have liked to use red wine instead, but there were no open bottles (they never last). They will cook into a syrup, these berries from the ranch, harvested last summer, maybe by my hands even. I would make blackberry wine if I had the patience, a libation to be poured in absence. And the day pours out ahead of me, there are things to be written, expectations to be met. I squirm under the weight of my responsibilities, but I lie here, back in bed, a few minutes more, looking for words to combat this... feeling. And then I find this, the poem that was called to my attention the other morning, over coffee, and grading, and inappropriate conversation (nalgador sobo?).

PIENSO, MI AMOR, EN TI TODAS LAS HORAS...
(Salvador Novo)

Pienso, mi amor, en ti todas las horas
del insomnio tenaz en que me abraso;
quiero tus ojos, busco tu regazo
y escucho tus palabras seductoras.

Digo tu nombre en sílabas sonoras,
oigo el marcial acento de tu paso,
te abro mi pecho -y el falaz abrazo
humedece en mis ojos las auroras.

Está mi lecho lánguido y sombrío
porque me faltas tú, sol de mi antojo,
ángel por cuyo beso desvarío.

Miro la vida con mortal enojo,
y todo esto me pasa, dueño mío,
porque hace una semana que no cojo.