12 buttons brown thread

take your psyche for a walk

pack the wheelchair

into the station wagon

for the doctor’s

kiss the cat

kiss the cat?

the cat died years ago

water the herbs

pray over the olive tree

drench your yesterdays in salt water

mend your mother’s trousers

get the sewing machine serviced

forgive someone something

try to remember what it was

cook tea tonight

it’s your turn

get the washing off the line

before it rains

make another list

fill the thesaurus

check the oil and water

in the dictionary

find a page of tomatoes

in the fruit bowl

stack the bookshelves with rice

dust the wattle

water the nouns and verbs

prune the adjectives and adverbial clauses

write a downpipe print a seedling

phone a friend

take yourself out and shake

the crumbs onto the grass

listen to mozart or the clash

bpay something

narrate a tree or a mote of dust

eat hopkins drink leonard cohen

smell the first leaves of your next book

brew them in your best pot

haiku your neighbour’s cat

finish your new cardigan

put teardrops into a dry eye

leave nothing out

and everything in the rain

including yourself

writing