301.
expecting company:
when they last-minute cancel
I find myself free
to heat this frozen pizza
drink tea Speak to no one
5/6/22
303.
In a worm hurry
he crawls out some frantic notes
on the hot sidewalk.
The ink glistens. Dries silver.
Travel writer going home.
5/20/22
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
I’ve felt that freeing from social obligation myself from time to time…(K)
I have to admit, as time goes on, I like socializing less and less (I mean parties and the like). I get overstimulated and shut down. And sometimes, even people I know well, I can’t keep up. So a night like in the poem, more and more, it seems just right.
I agree. I can do one socialization per week–that includes meeting for coffee or tea. Even going to a museum…an hour is about my limit.
Sometimes the universe hands us just what our heart needs – broken plans become a gift!
Yes, I have thought this myself, especially when maybe I was doing something out of obligation or duty, and accepting it had to be done, and suddenly I’m off the hook -fantastic!
I love the image of the worm trail as ink. The first poem made me smile because I am probably given to enjoying cancelled social plans more than I enjoy completed social plans.
Oh yes. As much as I might like the people I find socializing always an effort (some people a lot more than others). So being released from a social obligation will always be somewhat of a relief, no matter how eagerly I might have been anticipating it.
Also, I have always thought of those silvery worm trails as writing, ever since I was little.
I love your worm work, Claudia. We have been inundated with rain. As a result, when it stops the footpaths are strewn with sun-stunned earthworms. Just in case reincarnation really does happen, I pick them up and drop them back on the damp lawns they came from. When I get to the office my fingers are covered in surprisingly tenacious worm mucus. A small price to pay, I say, for our little blind friends.
I know what you mean. I hate seeing them struggle too. I especially am upset when I am out on a trail (many of them covered with a small sandy gravel) and worms try to cross and get all clogged up like they had been breaded for frying. I get a stick and try to help them to the grass, hoping they will be able to get themselves cleaned off. Crazy but I hate to see them struggling.