Weather

"What can I do?" His voice is sweet and high and birdlike in spite of his runny nose and clogged ears. He is out of ideas, and it is only noon. This is the indolent, gray season, and I am laid up here with a twinge in my middle-aged foot and ten pounds still left over from the indulgences of maternity.

 

“What can I do?” His voice is sweet and high and birdy
despite his runny nose and snotclogged ears.
He is out of ideas, and it is only noon.

This is the indolent, gray season,
and I am laid up here
with a twinge in my middle-aged foot
and ten pounds still
left over from the indulgences
of my long-past maternity.

And now his question rattles
around, hectoring me
like freshman philosophy.
What can I do? What should I do?

I should cook lunch and write
and clean the kitchen while
considering the important questions.
I should be more than I am,
not by degrees or over time. Now.

But I am sure I am a mountain:
unable to move, making my own weather, unawares,
acted on by geologic forces,
that have left me soft and lumpy and unrecognizable
and less.
I am sure things are not very much
up to me.

“What can I do?” He wants a blueprint for the perfect afternoon
(which is the same as a perfect life).
I am all out of ideas, too.

 

November 18, 2012 in poems, sounds, true stories, Writing

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