Hiya neighbors,

I hope you’re well, though I understand that feels impossible and improbable. But I pray for your good, robust health, that your verve is flourishing and protected, and that the glimmers of joy envelope you, regardless of those trying to feast upon us.

What are you reading? Do you like it? Do you keep reading things you don’t like out of the belief that you must finish? So far this month I’ve read:¹

• Grumpy Monkey Valentine Gross-Out by the inimitable Suzanne & Max Lang. If I had to go live in a fictional world for a while, it would be in the jungle with the bunch.
• Hello, Puddle! by Anita Sanchez, illustrated by Luisa Uribe
• Music Is a Rainbow by Bryan Collier
• The Little Book of Big What-Ifs by Renata Liwska
• We Always Had Wings by Jess X. Snow
• The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic by Lindsey Stewart
• The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within U.S. Slave Culture by Vincent Woodard
• We’ll Prescribe You Another Cat by Syou Ishida

Here are some new additions to my ever-expanding to-read list:

• Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
• Rocking the cradle of sexual politics : what happened when women said incest by Louise Armstrong
• Entitled: the rise and fall of the House of York by Andrew Lownie

They say to create more than you consume, and in that spirit, here are some of the latest craftworks from yours truly so far this year:

• ’26 cazimi karaoke [aquarian poem deep inside the winter submarine beneath the ice | 2.22.26]
• dumpster fire: a bardic detour into the Phoenix Open, aka Waste Management [a longform personal essay about golf, how it has pervaded my life, and the uncanniness of the PGA during the current cycle of evil empire; also featuring lengthyyyy footnotes | 2.12.26]
• ’25 clean-up / ’26 mezzomorte slumbercrawl [five poems of capricorn | 1.2.2026]

Yep, I’m still on substack for now. We’ll see how long I can stand the fumes, especially now with their polymarket bullshit. In the meantime, I created a new page featuring mutual aid funds and donations for our neighbors who could use some support.

Here’s the song that has been stuck in my head (gloriously, benevolently). And here’s another one spinning on repeat here in the cave, courtesy of a certain darling little owl who loves visiting. Thank you and bless you forever, Rosie Gaines.

Elsewhere we’re in the pre-shadow period of Mercury Retrograde <<retroshade>>, so I don’t expect this Chicago Bears hullabaloo will be settled for a while, and I notice some exes have appeared on the horizon.

Today in fire horse:

• fire at church
• fires in Abu Falah, West Bank, Palestine
• sinfire
• shotguns and gas cans

All righty folks, out like a sphinx—I’ll keep some riddles and secrets until next time,

dal fiume al mare, Palestina libera • Abolish ICE • courage or die, neighbor

Love, Kate