The coyotes yip and yap, and the dogs grow nervous. The oven sits empty cold quiet. I am anxious with all these appliances sitting in their rooms, soaking electricity. Expectation grows with every passing moment, unsolvable mounting pressure, a world in crisis, and I’ve learned it is better to chase the next bad thing, or the next bad thing will chase you.

I spend half my days in a slow dream, the other half in a blur. What is different today but the height of grasses and the quantity of things dying? What is different but the piles of dust, glass, or leaves needing swept up?

The format has changed in small lonesome ways. The way I dress, walk out the door, or pen this poem. Sometimes, while writing, I notice my hand, then wonder how it arrived here through the grabbing, holding, carrying, and punching. My hand tried so hard to break, but I wouldn’t allow it.

Like the man with his spool of wire, gone after forty years, but his wife doesn’t understand because men speak feelings in the language of hands. Men are not taught the value of speaking. They are only ever asked to do.

The lawn mower does not want to start. The fireplace has stopped working. Batteries have died. If there were no problems, a man would have no opportunity to prove his worth. The clock counts humdrum. Today is sloughings, layoffs, and drubbings. I am a sliver less than I was yesterday, the sun is distant and turned down. The days have stopped being bright.

The field is vast and wet and earthy, made for toiling. The field will dry in late spring. Then out will come the rabbits and field mice. More than I can count. By then the fog will have dissipated, and the house will be wide open, and the horses will be waiting for me to scratch their ears. The field is broad and damp and untilled. I will focus on one or two seemingly meaningless tasks and make them meaningful.

Today I will button up my coat and it will mean more than being warm. I will tie a pair of boots, and a shoestring will snap, and it will mean more than replacing laces. I will take the dogs on a walk through the cold, remembering my youth, and it will be more than a walk. I will hang my clothes next to my army dress blues and it will mean more than hanging clothes.

Today I will maneuver through the house, seeming to have no feeling or purpose, something will break, and I will fix it, and no one will notice.

Hey, I’m Roman. I’m working on my debut novel, 20xx, a work in magical realism. I write on Substack.