Things that Open

Hanna came with little more than wind and rain, and then the sky just opened up, and it felt so good to wander under it.

Last night, I went to hear Ada read poems and then I ate Brazilian food with old friends and sipped on pineapple-acai juice; now, I'm thinking of things that open, of parachutes and windows, yesterday's sky and envelopes, drawers and elevator doors, blue eyes and brown, thinking of shows and hands and hips and jaws, of how the o sits between the n and the p open as can be. My dear old plum-toed friend may very well be giving birth today (open as the inside of a flower, as a cracked walnut, a conch shell, an undone heart).

This morning, I banged the lid of a new peanut butter jar with a knife; I ran it under hot water; I wrapped a dishtowel around the neck and groaned like the birthing books teach me. Finally, the gasp of opening, and I downed my glass of milk and licked the knife clean.