Interior

What delights me is this: sitting on my bed with a cup of coffee in a yellow cup, planning what I'll read next, what book, what collection of essays, what poetry, what to download and what to hold in hand. I'm finishing Updike's Couples, have devoured its smutty pages even while walking. The story has made me feel lonely in the best way. I've got Lily King's Euphoria next -- she was a college classmate of mine, an old friend with whom I've lost touch, but I love her novels. Helen Oyeyemi's Boy, Snow, Bird sits beside my bed, the cover green with a snake and a pink rose. I've read a few of the chapters but will start over because I was distracted by the same loneliness with which Updike seduced me. I read an interview with Oyeyemi this morning (my yellow cup at my mouth), and she spoke of Maggie Nelson's Bluets, a book about the love of blue.  I read a bit of that, know I'll read the rest.  These things delight me, yellow at my mouth, blue breath.

Reader, what will you read next?

Sunday colors

The Little Mermaid illustration by Josef Palecek, 1981

My little mermaid is awake and awake. She is sitting in her yellow and lavender room, waiting for me to come dress her and perhaps, if she's lucky, go outside. The sky is blue today and the sun is low and warm, leaves are brown and the tomato plants droop. Henry and Oliver sit on their blue shag rug with a black video console, the blinds are brown. I yank them up, release the sun, step over a gray tee-shirt yellow at my back. We can color a Sunday to live through it.

Listen to this.