Joyful things are sweet and small today. Filling wide-mouthed jars with coffee brewed double-strength; the grounds slopped into the compost and joined by lemon rinds and the heads of strawberries, their leaves like bad haircuts. I boiled water for tea, mint whose saw-toothed leaves left a scent on my fingers more lasting than any cut. When the tea had steeped and cooled I washed my hair and poured it on my head, balanced over the sink, watching the beads of water drip-drop from curls as loose and slim as cursive handwriting. Capturing my cat in photographs of a clean house, folding his hairs already into freshly laundered towels and t-shirts and socks bundled mate to mate. They're easier to find this way, one wrapped snug in the other, paired.

The rumble of uneven wheels on pavement when M and I take the recycling and the garbage out, when we linger in twilight and track the progress of a single lightning bug between our yard and the neighbors'. We could see one star, too, like a chip of quartz in field stone, but it wasn't a wishing star. Just then I hadn't anything to wish for.