There is an armadillo at my window. He sees the two little dogs asleep on the couch below the window sill and shivers, his scales like the notes of a harmonica. I don’t know that the dogs will welcome him. They may see him as a threat for my attention; my attention for them as large as the moon. Should the armadillo come in, I will oil him first. It is dangerous saying first to anything. With first comes commitment, comes responsibility. I am ill prepared this morning as my eyes wish to do nothing but shut. I rode the elevator with the newspaper man. The newspaper man a clock registering early. Just seeing him makes me tired. What was I thinking that I could rise with birds, particularly the black crow. Sleep my beauty, sleep–my mantra after having met the armadillo. I slept and the armadillo was gone when I woke at noon, sunlight attaching itself to my blinds making them noisy. Coffee called from the kitchen. I stripped, exchanging my sleep shirt for sleeves the color of cactus.

It is odd for me to wear color. Only inside the house. Outside the house, it is always black. Black is the new thirty. I turned fifty last week.

I think to study the day that has yet to happen. My neck isn’t long enough to see around corners. I will make a raft out of tissue and count the seconds it takes to sink. I will peek around the corner and order in pizza. Guy and I got a fifty dollar gift certificate to Oregano’s for our birthdays. Guy’s birthday falls two days after mine. Our hands hook lovingly together forming a knot that is as ancient as the rocks outside our front door. There will be music without the rain. I lapse into shorts, my exposed legs the length of the breakfast table.

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