to start again from listening. a colleague's thin shirt gaping lightly at the buttons - not because he's fat but because it needs an iron. saying I would let that poem lie for a year and then violently strip it - no not him saying that, me saying that, not to him, to a friend on email. or just until you can get its wildness. but if you write like me you'll hardly write anything. every day every day. leaving out the Matron saying 'constipation! one, one, one, one, one, like rabbit droppings!' which would have been the best part. 

our sewage pipe got so full of tree roots that the toilet was constantly blocking. and then the whole garden got dug up, and now it's grown over with grass again but the soil is hard clay and uneven and T fell over yesterday morning and has a Strawberry Shortcake sticking plaster on his face. 

I fall asleep with him most nights, often in my work clothes. try to brush my teeth first just in case. be there soon. 

and what is in the day? a couple of hours reading an honours thesis on the balcony in the brilliant sun, above the other childcare centre, above the elm tree, burning hot in the sun but I really long for it on my skin which feels too cool in the shade when I've forgotten my cardigan. feet up on a decaying wicker chair. the male childcare teacher roaring at the kiddies like a pirate or a monster and they giggle. a union meeting with lists on the paper stuck to the whiteboard. the union rep's painful hip, their need to explain to me, the last one left in the room.  

emails from anxious colleagues and being surprised to find there are things I just don't care about any more, things I won't wind up about. 

a couple of hours talking about Japanese poetry - planning a reading tour, talking through a translation. just two lines to refine on this one now - trying to avoid the 'cry/die' rhyme which comes very easily towards the end but which doesn't catch its weight. 'soon a newborn will cry' but it's more like 'soon the cry of a newborn will sound', which is unnecessary. 'and then someone will die' but it's more like 'and therefore someone is going to become dead'.

the months of silence the list of deadlines sailing past me.