i can’t help it, people say sometimes which actually means they don’t want to, but believe me when i say i can’t help it, every morning when my eyelids open like a blind rolling up i can feel it, i’m ready for joy and this despite anything — despite everything. what a dark year, with so little cause for celebration and yet there i am anyway, ready, primed like a pump and ready to pour out delight.

sometimes i drive past the hotel downtown, the one that used to be some kind of resort and then became a student residence and then a flophouse (i marvel at its versatility as much as at its downward trajectory) which burned down last summer, it’s the kind of town where things burn regularly, and if i happen to be stopped at the light beside it i look to see if in all that rubble there is maybe a weed growing, something ugly but tenacious so that i can say to myself this is not a metaphor and also me too.