Between the Numbered Boxes

I moved this past weekend, and in the process of packing up 4.5 years of life in my previous space I came across four well-worn books of Sudoku puzzles. Before I got my smartphone, a book of puzzles was perfect for entertainment so I had one on me at virtually every moment. It was just mindless enough to relax while keeping my brain on a quiet humming plane.

I was going through the old books and came across little notes or ideas I'd written in them. Some are song lyrics, some are quotes or things to do, but others are things I scribbled down. Maybe if the words won't come now I should air out the ones I've had before. I'm still searching for my once and future words. So here are a few of the things I found jotted in pencil in the margins, between those numbered boxes.

"My ice has melted into mesas, monoliths left by the low tide in my glass."

"I keep hope like a flare gun, strapped to my leg."

"The heart of the day
has overstayed
a guest without insight to leave.
The crickets are sighing
in kind manners trying
For something akin to reprieve."

"My hand looks like my mothers. Outside the double-paned glass there is frost.
On the ground it is 85 degrees. Under the ocean of cumulus there is another, more staunch in its perceptive, precipitous state.
And I don't know this ocean."

"You stop hearing the train once you live by the tracks.
That's what my dad says.
He does.
He says, "Son, watch 'em tracks. Stay away from 'em tracks."
And I do stay away.
Sometimes."

The state of:

• Maine
• Main
• Mane

Poor Names for US Battleships:

• USS Asston
• Good Ship Lollypop
• Love Boat
• Dingy
• USS Flee
• USS Milliard Fillmore

And this quote:
"Somewhere are place where we have really been,
dear spaces
of our deeds and faces, scenes we remember
as unchanging because there we changed." --In Transit, W.H. Auden