If I spend enough hours
playing guitar under this tree
I’ll meet a woman
who will take me away.

Given enough time in the wilderness
every troubador imagines her.
Old tales tell of her: she’s the queen
of some fool place and can be

alternately ugly and gorgeous
like pretty much everyone else.
Rumor has it that if she chooses you
you’ve got to stay with her until

you learn her lessons — again,
pretty much like anything else.
In fact, everything about the story
sounds like an everyday life,

which makes sense if you think
myths are all about explanation
and not magic. In the story, the singer
comes back and can see the future,

but I suspect the truth is
that the singer comes back
and so much time has passed
that everyday things look so new

that he understands
what’s in front of him better
than the rest of us can who have been buried
in the details for all our lives.

So: a woman comes
and holds you just long enough
to make it seem that time stands still
and you can take advantage of that

to reinvent the way you are in the world.
It doesn’t sound odd to me. It has happened to me
a dozen times or more. It’s why I’m still sitting
under this tree.

every pill, no matter how
familiar, is a mystery until it is
consumed. i live within
a fence of such mysteries.
things change
often enough that surprises
still occur.

take tonight
when you were leaving
and i became sad. i never expected
a pill to make it all better, but still
there was a deluge in me
when your car pulled
away. i went back upstairs
and decided not to take another pill
until morning, letting the natural sadness
wash me.

it will be no surprise
in the morning when i wake up alone.
the next pill may ease that,
or it may not. i’ll only exhale again
when you return, either way.