Little lies I tell: Josh can’t remember whether he bought the tickets 
to the Giants game or I did—I claim I got them for his birthday; 

or saying I heard him when I really only heard fragments of words. 
His two nights of migraines, in the ER, home in time to brew coffee 

for the next morning. The cat Pookie hopping around with an elephant-
	shaped 
cone on his head after worrying a spot on his leg raw. Meeting K 

at Dosa by Dosa for dinner. Yoshi’s Jazz Club on Friday for Josh’s 59th: 
an Oakland As sushi roll with avocado and tempura shrimp, black cod, 

blood orange sorbet, and jazz for dessert. A jacuzzi morning and 
delicious Saturday afternoon nap and running into a neighbor’s sister 

at Zachary’s pizza. She remembers Josh’s kindness when 
her brother was dying. Smoke and ash fill the air from fires north 

and east. An op-ed in The New York Times says resistance 
is listening to music, playing it, reading a book, writing a poem. 

LeeAnn Pickrell

is a poet, freelance editor, and managing editor of Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche. Her work has appeared in a variety of online and print journals, most recently One Art, Loud Coffee Press, Atlanta Review, and MacQueen’s Quinterly; and in the anthologies Coffee Poems (2019) and A Trembling of Finches (2017). She has a book forthcoming from Unsolicited Press. She lives in Richmond, California, with her partner and two cats.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Hand and Wheel, after Georgia O’Keeffe—Hand and Wheel (1933) by Alfred Stieglitz, in KYSO Flash (Issue 8, August 2017)

⚡ Ode to Coffee, after a painting by Richard Diebenkorn, in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 4, July 2020)