A child gashes their foot on a sharp screw, unattended. Her mother complacent, absent. A man misinterprets a word here and next thing you know, furniture raised overhead, glass tinkles as it’s smashed, drawers flung across a room leave gaping wounds in a chest  — and all I want to do is sit outside in my sunshine on the porch, laptop at the ready, gazing at newly flowered bottle brush because it’s spring equinox and life should be easier than this, should be softer than this, should be kinder, more hopeful, warmer. The tinkling should be laughter not shattering on a blue day sky so bright as this one, on a golden grateful shine so aching as this one but it isn’t and my strawberries are dying and the weeds are overgrown and I don’t know if a spring clean is going to be enough to fix all of it this time.
