Keep At It

Keep at it, keep
at it: the fingers
urge me, the hands
keep urging me
to post, to write
as if there is nothing
else I could be doing,
should be doing;

as if there aren’t
shoes to buy, a letter
in the mail to puzzle
over, punctuation
to look at it in each
piece I write
and then fret upon:
common, semicolon,
em-dash? Capitals
or no?

Is this one
going to break me open,
break me out?
Will the next one?
Which piece will be my last?

I sit in a big old chair
in the living room writing
and I call it living
because I admit
that I can’t imagine
what not living
(or not writing) is like.

I bend to it:
I keep at it, keep
at it; an unlucky
person may read it
one day and they will
think they knew me
if I am true to it
and maybe I’ll be gone
or maybe not, but at least
I will leave a smudge
or a smear or, absurdly,
some profundity behind.
Something just so.
Something minimally
right.

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