Today, I shuttle the lime tree from sunbeam to sunbeam like a cat, clap gnats stigmatic. Today writers introduce themselves to themselves, outraged. Today is hardball sugar suction gone compost.

Today, an unexpected bequest from a great aunt! Signatures and mailings; runcinated circular stamp. Today is waxy paper; a long, light box carried backward up stairs; hundreds of stitches to bind protection; cold under cotton.

Today is eggs bathed bright; walkie-talkie on walkabout; pans of old dirt smuggled from under an overturned carpet; hamburgers passed through a window. Today a tabby pounces on grasshopper-shaped foam; rows of knots restructure thread into elastic; oranges disemboweled and reconstituted cryogenic; observant video image carried through half-unpacked house.

Today is a caffeine-powered bulb stuttering leaves or beams through fog or ground and intermittent cold. Today is anxious awakening before dawn certain I slept through my alarm; a back that won't unclench; a frayed body tenting bodies more threadbare. Today a loved mother beat blood cancer and died of bacterial infection; animals roamed the house searching for missing children; part of a voice rubbed off before it left my throat.

Today is a braid to the jugular; outsourced drugstore condolences; three pots simmering jowl to jowl. Today is regurgitated leaves; missed doses; cut nostril; mineral ring around the reservoir; blue ribbon dither. Today an Oreo impersonates a macaron; methanethiol smell of new asphalt shingles across the sash; revenue service checks.

Today is a drawing haltingly colored; heaving fur perched on two pillows; a pirate's gold hoop; a cup of methylated xanthines; chartreuse toenails. Today I propose alternate terminology based on pinball machines and computer architecture; agonies of a northbound waistband. Today, a photosynthetic teleporter accident congests in the buffer; snapped threads knotted await reinforcement; a translated letter apologizes for another timeline; manful rubber dinghies in laudation.

Today has a hundred names; a bin-stuck bag; unexplained puddles the size of sand dollars. Today is fairy-fist ice knocking each window; song's melody missing; arrival date lost; message sent in secret; secret message displayed deniably; circle of air with the worst removed. Today, a negotiation of nations with nations; unexpected snow slush inch; fish the space heater from a dusty closet.

Today's list gets longer as I strike tasks off; I know the connotation of vacation versus leave, know English and American robins are different birds; elliptic resumption. Today sent noise in circles round the block; new jokes to show the speakers aren't comedians, enjoy companionship; textural inversion of popcorn pudding and crunchy applesauce; congratulations in wire.

Today is the morning wail of an electric saw, flat-tire prunes. Today, a backyard train simulation; short pants pulled off high shelf; dirt siphoned from a rotating tub; speculative audience for European cinema.

Today, a naughty circle is in the hearts; a brand new woman; scooter skullduggery; child-dangerous pellets through the greensward. Today, my parents are shot; a computer and I guess at each other's gaps; performative resentful reading; the demand to choose a hobby.

Today, claims of lustrous skin are not supported by the FDA; a pickup baseball field is larger than Fenway but smaller than Central Park; rumored aphrodisiac of dreams; watercolor flowers 33 years apart. Today is old lint gripped by plastic chopsticks, angled wooden spoon; visible lines on erased faces; itchy pebbles; absentee morning; last week's memory at ten times speed.

Today's newscast: a salesperson warns us we are professional hairstylists with psoriasis. Today split my trousers with muscularity; discussion of lung anatomy, inflated and not; bone corridors beneath Paris. Today, I deprive myself of sleep to reach an altered state, transcendental. Today is good riddance; blood spot cleanup; centers dissolve but the outer wall holds. My breasts remain my breasts.




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Romie Stott is a poetry editor at Strange Horizons. Her poems have most recently appeared in The Deadlands, On Spec, Polu Texni, and Dreams&Nightmares. As a narrative filmmaker (working mainly as Romie Faienza), Romie has been a guest artist at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), the Dallas Museum of Art, and the National Gallery (London). She is currently involved with an experimental photosymphony about the Tokyo train system. You can find her portfolio at romiesays.tumblr.com.