Things others have improved but I can’t seem to:
Other food wrappers – a lot of basics just don’t seem to be sold without plastic. I can buy rice in big sack, but it’s still in a plastic sack; I can buy a big bag of pasta, but it’s still a plastic bag. I can buy dried beans and lentils (less shipping costs than tinned), but they’re still in a plastic bag. I think this is due in part to the lack of bulk-buying (from open bins) in the UK.

Things I can’t work out how to cut:
Medication wrappers – I anticipate needing routine medications for most of my life. They all come in plastic. There isn’t really a choice. None of it is even recyclable.
Envelope windows – I try and get off mailing lists, especially those of charities who are wasting my donation by sending me endless shiny post. My banks mostly let me have statements online-only. But some people (the hospital, the council, the tax people) are always going to write to me, and they all use plastic window envelopes.

7. Your Hand

8. Daily Routine

9. You in Black and White

1. Self-Portrait

2. View from Your Window

3. Where You’ve Slept

4. Feet

5. Your Handwriting

-

I have always loved rocking
rocking chairs, a boat, a swing:
shift your weight and you’re floating
feeling that you could take wing.

Fire sweetens air
salt admonishes water:
purification.

-

What’s at the centre?

The cherry on the top bang in the middle;
wicks running central to the candle’s core;
the in-breath, the out-breath, noticed as it flows;
heartwood which rots yet leaves a living tree;
the single leg of a tapping table;
a paperback’s glossy picture pages;
clusters of stamens awaiting the bees;
a farm near Fox’s Drayton-in-the-Clay;
the magnetic coils of earth’s molten rock;
and in silence, the small still voice of God.

-

Gynaecologist

Heels up and knees out
let those folks with microscopes
probe your sexual sins.

-

Park

Your flowers are
breaking out:
I cannot name
the blue one
or this tiny
white one but
no matter; you
don’t know mine.
Welcome or not
I visit
in all weathers
and love you
when your flowers
are just out.

Sitting with the snake
coils wringing out my heart
choking up my throat
venom in my eyes
I breathe compassion for snakes
and try not to fight.