For one who worried young on wasting time,
she seems to have too much of leisure now.
The afternoons she longed for in her prime,
available four days a week, allow
fair interlude for crafting prose and rhyme,
enrolling in a program of know-how…
But such would tap a stamina that bled
while she was made to multitask instead.
I fell into the news morass last night.
About to stream, I network-paused and saw
the devastating fires. Then my sight
was taken by the despot twisting law
again – no taste, surprise, not wise, not right.
I flashed to Ozymandias and Musk.
I sobered and I grieved, too sad to fight,
and sat through corny films an arid husk.
Proceeding southward on my block, I crossed
the intersecting street ahead of two
young women turning right behind me, lost
in talk I heeded as I led them through
a second right turn. Now a thought I tossed
was they were pacing squarely, like some do
when killing time. Before the final veer,
their Adderall uptakes I got to hear.
Arriving home at nearly noon, I read
a text that set our call for half past one.
Six hours earlier I rose from bed
(that’s not my own). Now me-time has begun.
I’ve aimed attention to my care instead
of any outer task. My bath is run,
and after soft immersion and a peel,
I’ll settle in to eat my favorite meal.
I woke to feel decrepit in two joints.
My left knee griped, and something in my wrist
(the left as well) objected when it points
up on the ulnar side. I made a fist
and rested some, and as the day anoints
me, as I write and pedal, I feel kissed
by the advance of morning warmth and light.
Three hours passed and now I’m nearly right.
Full body yoga was this morning’s choice –
a twenty-seven minute stretch and move.
With almost empty mind, I heard a voice
that recommended cooking to improve
the options for my dinners. I rejoice
today in solitude, as cool as you’ve
imagined me, as busy as I wish,
with all I need to make my favorite dish.
It made no sense to me, the way they claimed
it either was a lab leak or the site
where animals for food were vended, named
“wet market” in reporter lingo. Right
as life, I said it could be both. For might
an error in a lab permit relay
to crowding someplace near? What comes to light
is “amplify” instead of “start,” today.
The laurel leaves are lovely, but it’s best
to leave them on the branches or the ground.
They aren’t soft enough to offer rest
while yet you live. In truth, the wise have found,
while honoring the past, it’s no behest.
Without more innovation, we’ll be drowned
in tides nostalgic, brimming with felled trees,
bogged down and dammed by static histories.
I hate it when a fly comes in my room.
Yet I don’t want to murk my view with screens.
I took to closing doors to bar the zoom,
but August heat and dead air’s what that means.
A stranger commented – no fly convenes
within on purpose – they prefer outside.
Of late I open wide, enjoying scenes
and air where no fly chooses to abide.
Remembering how much my brother’s feet
repelled me, as I watch the grandkids spurn
a sibling’s trespass on their space – discrete
in limits – it’s not difficult to turn
to evolution’s rule. We’d risk effete
mutation if we interbred. We learn
with moody pheromones to seek elsewhere
the body with which we can safely pair.
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