Leftover Hope

If I am to be 
one hundred per cent honest,
I have little hope
of anything for myself.

As often as I suggest
to others that there
is hope to seize
if one seeks it,

I do not seek
for much beyond 
what keeps me together
each day from 

moment to moment —
sometimes each moment
stretching to an hour, sometimes
shrinking to swift-changing

seconds of certainty that
then turn to doubt. I see
so much in me that is
weak and helpless when faced

with the work that needs doing
on myself, my loved ones,
my city, my nation, my people,
my world. So little time

ahead; so little energy stored within;
so much agony in the way
of stepping to it, and so much 
guilt at being forever in my own way.  

Keeping it one hundred per cent:
hope is not a commodity 
I am willing to spend
to repair this wretched scaffolding.

I leave it in
the hands of those
who will not squander it, or
those I hope will not squander it.

It’s all I’ve got, really; the leftover hope
that I will be of some small use 
to someone who is 
of more use than I have ever been.