There are flowers in the median on the way down to New Orleans

Katie said they were nettles and I guess she was right. I think they’re very pretty—taller than I am, thin-throated and headed with a pink bulb made of linear petals. I don’t know what they feel like, though I’ve wanted to touch.

I’m thinking in poems as I drive, which is useless except now, as I’m stuck in traffic. I don’t know what happened and haven’t looked to see how long it will take. I wonder if good writing is hard or not.

Nicole has been wanting to write more. I suggested she catalog things she owns, specifically items of clothing, because she loves those and hers are interesting. I was inspired by the book I gave her for her law-school graduation, which I’d read in parts only at the salon around the corner from my house where I twice got my hair cut. Last time did not go well: The woman seemed unsure of what I wanted and held up strands of my hair to the mirror. Did I want this cut? This? I had no idea; only she knew how the parts would fit into the whole.

The book was called Worn in New York and I loved it. It held entries from different people, each as told to one woman whose writing I liked. The tone was always good, a little wistful or sometimes defiant or both. Next to each entry was the item of clothing the essay described, which the person had worn in New York. Pants once complimented by someone who always wore good pants, until they died. Leggings torn by dog bite. Something beautiful and shiny. I told Nicole to try to write essays like that. I don’t know if she has.

I’m thinking about doing the same thing, except my clothes aren’t all so interesting. I’d rather do all the little stones and ceramics I collect and put in my room. I’ve been packing them up because I’m moving, and I think they’re each beautiful and good to hold. Some other people made for me and some I picked up on beaches. Some fell out of my underwear at the end of a day and I thought, Well, if you want to stick around, you can.

We talked about list poems in school and I guess it’s a similar concept. I never liked list poems so much though: No matter the items, the poems all read kind of the same. This meant either that stuff wasn’t so interesting, or that stuff is only so interesting to the people who own it, until they explain: Symbols aren’t so good without context.

Katie gave me a purple mug. I chose it from the circle of things she’d made and placed on her bedroom floor. Choose any of them, she said, except this one, and she took one away. I chose the purple mug: It has a thick bottom so it holds less water than you’d think, and a thin cylindrical handle that reaches farther out than you’d expect. She left town yesterday, or I think she did. She was too busy to say goodbye.