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Pretend I wrote something incisive about Princess Nails and neutrals and minimalism and gardening but as a vibe and the overlap of recession markers and harbingers of fascism in aesthetic trends.

Pretend I said something about how the heavy marketing around growing your own food and learning to sew is an attempt to profit on the poverty-driven death of convenience so that it's easier to hide the class divide.

Pretend I wrote a little poem or something that uses lines like "if poverty is an aesthetic, the poor disappear" or whatever.

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I like the idea of decorative candles on a dinner table.

Little things that embody a simpler, more difficult history—even as they inspire us to dream about a light, affection-laden future—are special to me; they're not clutter, they're art. They're commentary. They're the hope of laughter and hand-holding over a beautiful meal, and a quiet promise to return to utility should the world go dark again.

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"Yellowstone County"

Give me your sandstone

altar; I would sink my hands

into your belly,

slip inside and cover me

with lichen, smoke, and resin.

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"Moth"

There's a small grey moth

in my shower, collecting

dust where I left her

to dry her wings after I

tried to save her from drowning.

I should bury her,

but I keep forgetting to

collect her body

when my mind wanders as I

wash my hair, murmur aloud,

"I can remember,

this time. I will not leave her."

But memory is

slippery, and spilling through

clean hair as the mantra shifts:

"I can remember,

this time. Not like the pothos

I need to water.

I should water her," and then

I forget again.

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"Cathedral"

I don't want your God,

but I have seen the power

of sun through stained glass.

I understand how

glowing motes of dust in light

baptised Kievan Rus,

and how harmonies

sung loud in awe, "El Shaddai"

felt like an answer.

But it wasn't God

who coaxed divine harmony

from paper and ink,

and not Yahweh who

cut glass and burned it into

art and memory.

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"On Mothers Who Are Trying"

There is a black fly

circling my bedside table;

she's getting tired.

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"Doaa"

My children once breathed through my body.

I bled in a clean room,

and a bed with changing sheets.

My babies placed upon my chest,

or under a light when I shook too hard.

Safe.

Always safe.

I was fed.

Broth and sandwiches on platters,

taken at the end to be cleaned out of sight.

I washed my body

(warm water and soap),

baptising the animal into hibernation,

almost;

reminding me that

while I may be part of earth,

who breathed and strained and cried with me,

with all birthing mothers,

I still have a name.

Yesterday, Doaa gave birth in Gaza.

A son who breathed through her body -

just like mine.

Doaa bled into the earth,

and it recognized her.

Mother.

Like all mothers.

Like me.

Who will bring her broth and sandwiches?

Who will keep her baby safe?

In a tent?

In October?

Who will keep him warm?

Who will help her wash her body

(warm water and soap)

and remind her that she has a name?

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"Matthew"

I like the way your

tongue sticks out when you focus,

just a little bit.

Like a remnant of

Little You, four years old and

trying very hard.

I wonder what else

you do that Little You did,

where he lives in you;

How much of what I

love in you was born before

you'd ever been hurt.

I would hold your hand,

and help you not to worry

that you are not good;

I would hold your hand,

promise not to leave - even

if we make mistakes.

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"Butte"

Deafening, I bet,

the silence when the headframes

fell asleep for good.

Blinding, I bet, the gut shot

of trust turned rancid and drowned.

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"Echo"

I watched a series

about dying, and I think

it made me feel safe—

Like a pebble dropped to count

how long it takes to echo.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

And a bright ripple of sound

all the way back up

where I sit waiting, breathing,

wondering how falling feels.

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"Boys and Girls"

There's a comment thread

of women fawning over

their husbands' boyhoods.

Not condescending—

deeply proud of things they do

when no one's looking.

Laying out new clothes

he chose to fit in with friends,

matching all perfect;

grinning after work

'cause his friend said the lunch box

you bought him is cool;

wearing red at school

pickup, because your daughter

once said he looked nice.

I'm watching my sons

and desperately hoping

that they stay this sweet,

that the world lets them

be the same boys who say things

like, "I am so kind,"

even when they're men;

that they won't believe the lie

that manhood is cruel.

Women don't hate men.

We miss you, so much;

the version who traded rocks

with us at recess.

We miss ourselves, too;

who didn't think to be scared

when we were just friends.

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Silence descends upon the Montana State Capitol today as tribal leader Dr. Shane Doyle from Crow Agency sings before a crowd of over a thousand, in opposition to Musk's assault on public lands and the Americans who maintain them. The crowd gathered in the middle of a weekday in such numbers that there was no parking for four blocks in any direction around the Capitol and scarcely a path for legislators to make it to their chambers.

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Over 100 people showed up despite subzero temperatures to protest Project 2025 and oligarchy in the USA on Wednesday in Helena, Montana. In doing so, we started a local grassroots group of nearly 40 kind souls who want to help.

Say what you will about protests, but they're important. They may never be the reason a despot changes his mind, but they are frequently the reason that a person who feels dangerously alone realizes that they are not. If that's all we did, and we did it for dozens of people? Worth it.

Do I have frostnip on my face? Yes. Did my heart rate get alarmingly fast when I had to do the public speaking? It sure did. But I'd do it again, over and over.

Later we all met for pizza, so let's pretend that's the tie-in to food. I'm too tired to make that pretty.

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The boy child loves oranges.

I love the way they make the entire house smell like the morning.

They've been intentionally cultivated for thousands of years, probably originating in southern China, Vietnam, and India, before trade between the Arabs and the Mediterranean allowed them to make contact with Europe. They didn't arrive in the Americas until the 16th century, brought by the Spanish.

Watching my toddler peel segments of fruit away from the whole and savor each one like candy, it occurs to me that he only knows what this tastes like because of cultural exchange with a place our country has chosen to demonize rather than admit our own flaws. I don't know what to do with this thought, so I'll put it here for now.

And then I'll scoop up the peels and dump them into a pot, with billion-year-old water and cinnamon acquired in trade with another far-off land, and let the morning scent grow until it's spent.

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