THE LONGEST DAY

I’m not happy, I told a therapist, I have no place to write.  

I didn’t mention a friend said I could use her guesthouse, 

a church down the road offered a pew, my husband said 

I could use his studio, but those won’t do. I need solitude, 

no one waltzing through on the way to life. I can’t write 

with a cat in my lap, I’ve tried bedrooms, living room…. 

I would be happy with a place to write, 

but it has to be the right place, no one smiling, 

asking if I need a refill on my coffee. No! 

I was brought up better than to say, Just go away. 

So, tonight I’ve come to the fifth floor deck of our loft. 

Far below, notes from a cello waft up and settle around me. 

It’s summer solstice, my birthday, damn near dark. 

A bat just flew by and katydids are rubbing their wings 

together or whatever they do to make that razor noise. 

I find them distracting, but not quite as distracting 

as a cat in my lap making little star feet all over my body. 

My birthday, so many now, it’s become an embarrassment. 

I think about my mother, dead fifty years, how after the funeral, 

her sister said, Your mother always was a turd of misery. 

I am not my mother.