December 5, 2023

any minute now **

The downstairs rug could use a good vacuuming. Perhaps this is the day
to whittle the inbox down to zero, scrub the rust from the bolts
keeping the shower drain in place, edit from the lineup on the closet floor
the unworn shoes from last season. Can’t you feel the lucid emptiness
already, the platter of colliding demands cleansed and cleared? It’s enough 
to lose yourself in untying the knots between here and the front door, between
here and the hard stare of a world suiting up to knock you out cold. Why 
would you ever want to leave this room for that? But the light dwindles
too rapidly this time of year, this time of life. Any minute now, it could go.
A fresh snow has laid down the gauntlet, daring you to wake up.

** I borrowed one of the lines of this poem from last week’s “10-line Tuesday” offering.