Behind the blinds, waiting.
Listening for the clank, waiting.

Checks, junk, bills, or letter?
Birthday card from long-lost love? Waiting.

Glimpse of the truck up at the corner. 
Who’s driving — the regular, the substitute? Waiting…

from everywhere, that paper comes to me.
Paper that matters, that kills or kisses…waiting

for bulk mail or perhaps a package
I do not expect?  Or something else…waiting

to see what comes.  For the daily Visitor
who’s never welcomed inside the house.  Waiting

for She who walks among us and never enters
while leaving impact in Her wake, like wind…waiting

for my mind to return to the trivial from the ridiculous
here…it’s just mail.  Just stuff.  Waiting 

too intently makes you a fool.  Just go get it from the box
after it’s come…now.  And…nothing.  Waiting

to see how I feel — relief at no airborne disaster, 
disappointment at no airborne surprise?  Waiting’s

gone on long enough — step away from the analog
and the mystery wind, back to the screen where there’s no waiting

for a communication from random life.  It’s instant.
No muss, no fuss…no ritual.  No holiness in waiting.

In this coffee,
clarity…? hard
to tell; maybe
the usual confusion
is just spread more thinly
over my foggy old
nerves. Perhaps
the notion of “clarity”
itself and the various aids
that are recommended
for its enhancement
are all myths, and

I’m stuck with having
to muddle through
regardless.  I know,

though, that the ritual
helps a lot in getting me 
into the mood for the struggle;
we’ve lost so much 
in our cavalier dismissal
of such things and how
they carry us through
the crooked enjambement of 
frenzy and boredom
that is our modern

world; we pour, spoon, pour
milk, sip, adjust; we
make it work, check the color
and the taste closely —
details are missed too often
in our lives and this at least
restores the practice
of care and control
for a moment.

Slew a mouse tonight —
he appeared when I moved
a pile of papers — stood there,
tiny, gray-brown, unblinking —
slew him, brought a bottle
of cleaning fluid down hard —
he bled, twitched, was still dying
when I tossed him off the back porch —
so small, seemed so surprised
to see me — slew him fast, disposed
of him at once.  Had
no second thought about it.
How could I when I never
had a first thought about it?