A Grand Reveal

A book of another’s poems
closed before me on the desktop.
Folk singers live on the radio, testing
three songs about love, dreams, and Alaska.
I am dressed for the day; got a lone
task to do later on; other than that
it yawns before me like a mouth,
and it’s not even six AM. This is life
now — a boring, thrilling sameness
to it all, and I am alone facing it. Partner,
sister, mother, friends — gone to their
own exercises. It is me and the cat
who doesn’t really care that much about me
as long as the food holds out.

Back now to the poems full of non sequiturs
that still somehow make some rational sense. The folk singers
did not say a word I could understand. The cat
gets disgusted again and goes out of the room
to lick herself and sleep. Or perhaps she is content
and this is how she shows it? I only know
I’m tired already and afraid of the day springing some surprise.
Maybe there will be a snake the size of Alaska.
Maybe my death will come quietly and I won’t notice.
Maybe the marvelous will come and startle me back to health.
This is my life, after all. I don’t have the first clue
about where it’s going. I just know it goes,
chugging along on a track I recognize now and then
and I am hoping for either a grand reveal
or a nearly silent moment where I say, “oh. Oh.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T