Standing on the threshold,

but of what?

Me, some three-dozen books ago, photographed by William Sulit

A photograph of a page from a book, sent by way of text on an afternoon when maybe the wind is rushing up against the pliable limbs of the birch outside, blustering and squalling. Maybe. Though I only hear the wind within, the tumbleweeding of my mind. How one thought knocks against another thought, leaving bruise behind. Then this text pinging in

floating into view words I had written years ago. Like:

She writes fierce things in notebooks and calls herself a poet, and when she plays her music, she plays it loud and dances, unafraid to be seen, or to be found out.

Like:

There is an exuberance about this me that I find enviable, appealing. There is a fearlessness that seems naive, incautious, and terrific.

Like:

I have lived too many years to be that woman again. There is grammar in my skin, gray in my hair. There is less speed in my feet; the old bike is rusty; I walk where once I ran.

I have lived too many years, I’d written of myself, too many years ago, and suddenly I am lost in the liquidity of time, chasing multiple selves, one of whom dared to use the word terrific, one of whom stood like this, at an old train station, saying yes, with ease, to a camera’s eye.

(Who did I think I was, standing there on the threshold? My right hip cocked and my left knee punched into the skirt that was too formal for the day? My hands pressed (easy, now) against the old stone of the train station, as if (any moment) I might make more room for myself?)

(The skirt was chemical. The vest was velvet. The heat was high and harsh.)

There are not enough commas. There is no container for ongoingness. There will be years from now, when I find this digital page, and will wonder, again, at my own audacities.