driftback
as soon as lunch
is under her belt
she adds eat lunch
to her to-do list
for the immediate
satisfaction
of crossing it out.
done.
she nurses the baby
into a nap,
grabs a book to read
to the toddler,
slides into reciting
from memory,
mumbles bits of improv
as someone pulls
the shades down
on the windows
of her eyes.
—dotty seiter
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2 x 2″; watercolor and ink on paper
inchie landscape
2026
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Notes about poem and art:
• “driftback” is a short free-verse vignette that I suspect is highly relatable to many. In fact, even now, the senior citizen that I seem to have become enacts just such a drift nearly every night while reading before lights out.
• Disappearing is another of the inchies I created during Amy Maricle’s 2026 Inchie Challenge in August. It’s essentially a mood-mini, this time in an even smaller size than what I played with back in the spring. I continue to enjoy putzing around with watercolor, learning as I go. Very relaxing and, as in the poem, allowing for drifting off, in this case into imagination, first with paintbrush and then with pen in hand.
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