I stand at the kitchen window,
making a list of things I need to do.
The early sun leans gently
on the shoulders of the house.

My wife comes in
and asks what I’m doing.
Nothing, I say, which is true
the way most things are true—
partially, around the edges.

I’m at the window for a long time,
thinking of nothing in particular—
in other words, everything.
My list says milk, Windex, then
a line I cannot read, my handwriting
a row of small collapses.

The Palo Verde at the back of the yard
has begun blooming again,
its yellow so sudden, so specific
it seems almost argumentative.

A hummingbird holds itself perfectly still
before a flower, its heart beating
twelve hundred times a minute—
all that effort just to stay in one place.

I take Dog out for a walk.
He moves ahead of me on the leash,
nose down, reading the long novel of the sidewalk,
stopping briefly to pee on a cactus.
The cactus neither welcomes nor refuses.
It simply continues, which is, I think,
what the cactus would say
if you asked it for advice.