In the morning, before the others are awake , I watch the fog rise around the retreat center, through the valley, through the space between the Nave and the dorm, through the space within nostrils, the mist fills us, and in becoming part, it rises through the space between thoughts.

I once tweeted that I fog the mind to protect myself from the things that I already know. In the morning, the fog protects me from your sharp edges, which I already know, but would rather avoid before I’ve had my morning coffee brewed by Anne; it rises between Orada and the addicts who stared through me with gleaming eyes amidst the mist in San Francisco, where they are very far away; it rises, the mist rises through the space between me and my parents, two old people in America who could die from covid, rising between me and the possibility that I would never see them again.

Most of all the mist rises between the future and this relentless present where I find myself grateful, merry, wrestling, and trapped,

and so I must ask: is this mist that rises into sheets the fringe of a stranding island or the tender edges of a womb?