Periwinkle sunrise, make the coffee, find a towel. Hot shower like a gentle spring rain only teases your shoulders, your back. Thoughts stream through: call a plumber, pay a bill, upcoming appointment with new doctor, where does the novel go next? When will there be time and energy for that? Will you ever write like you used to, with passion, with joy, with sitting down at the computer and letting the characters tell you their story? No pain, when you wrote, then. Roll shoulders under the trickle, neck side to side, up and down. Gentle, graceful movements. Always gentle. You remember that woman in the parking lot at the grocery story, humped over, eyes leading, like an ancient tortoise. You double-down on your commitment to weightlifting, diet. You curse the random scrabble-tile toss of genetics that gifts your mother with the bone density of a woman half her age and you like a shrinking crone twenty years before you’d been promised when you were a young and juicy thing, adults admiring your posture. Was the juice worth the squeeze? It is what it is, the doctors say, and you want to punch them and say the same. “Well, with your back…” “Well, with your bone density results…are you sure you aren’t doing drugs or smoking?” “Well…” You should be grateful, you hear between their words. Grateful just to wake each morning, to stand on two feet, to have your faculties, to feel the sun on your face and that frustrating sprinkle on your shoulders. Greet the periwinkle sunrise and make the coffee. Call the plumber.