June 27, 2023

roughshod

I know about half-baked ideas. I've stayed up nights imagining the possible outcomes, 
then jiggering the blueprints yet again. I’ve looked in the mirror and given pep talks 
to the worry looking back, and turned my living room into a catwalk so I could practice 
the stride of someone who knows exactly what she’s doing. But in the end, 
there’s that glitch in the mechanism I can never plan for—the wires frizzling 
in the unforecast humidity, a toggle switch that won’t wake up—and the wild design
I somehow managed to wrestle into street clothes drags its delinquency behind it. 
All the dust and none of the glory. Still, I can’t help but love every rumpled foundling 
and the misbegotten stink at its heels. How else would I meet each dejected face 
at my door, then reach with my roughshod hands to hold it closer?