the yellow wave of sun again

I have this little cactus named Maurice. He is only about three inches tall and spikes out probably two. Each day when I come into my office to write, I notice that he is slanting to one side or the other. I’m not sure why. I’ve been told not to over water him, that if I do, he’ll die, but I feel like he wants the water. He is in this fake little terracotta planter, painted in that American Southwest style. But the desert trees are the wrong color. They look like seaweed poking through red clay. They were probably painted in Taiwan anyway, by little girls that didn’t even know what they were suppose to imagine on the pot. As if they were allowed to imagine at all.

This morning I got lost in this little town called Hudson. I missed my turn and anyone would confidently say that I have the worst sense of direction. But it was such a pleasant drive. These little farm houses. Ohio farm houses. The ones on the tops of giant hills and the roads that run next to them bending so tightly that you think you are meant to go in and say hello. That a woman with a yellow apron might be in there making you chicken and dumplings or a blackberry pie. When all of my hope was lost of ever making it home again, I saw the woman who is our mail carrier. She was driving toward me, her little white trunk nearly flying from the top of the pavement hills. It was sunny. March sunny, like winter might be melting down at last. And her eyes were squinting. She looked so happy. She might have been lost too.