What keeps me up at midnight

When I was six I sat in a rocking chair in my grandmothers bedroom, as I was sitting there my great aunt came into the room and started to undress, she looked at me and laughed and I ran from the room, terrified.

All of my daughters were nursed in a rocking chair. Their sweet faces quiet and still. I am on the outside looking in. How can both of these objects be called rocking chair?

Every day I wake up and go outside to get the newspaper off the driveway. I see my neighbors tree in the front yard, its waxen leaves raised to the dawn. Later I jog past the tree on my morning run. It is there to greet the mailman. It is there when I leave for work, and again when I return.

Stroller?

Deck?

Car would be hard.

Fence… does fence go with deck?

Brick wall… does brick wall go with deck, no asparagus makes it something new…

10 things I see every day.

I used to wonder if it is we who perceive the universe, or if it is the things of the universe that are watching us. I would imagine the light of the sun reflecting off of a tree, a bush, a car, passing through the lens of my eye and back out again, returning to the place what sent it.

I am pretty sure there isn’t much difference between me and these things. I am pretty sure we are the same.