Weekend Poem

Lady M

There’s not enough time to do any good.

There’s never enough time.

And don’t tell me to get my face out of my phone.

I’m fully aware of opportunity costs

And wasted hours falling down You Tube rabbit holes,

The middle distance stares,

Lost reveries in grocery store lines;

I know all about those, baby.

It’s not the lost time

It’s the terror of not being kind.

We all wander some nights like Lady Macbeth

Balling our fists, whispering rueful regrets

Into our drawn hoods of shame.

Not for some damn evil murder,

Nothing like that.

(I never aimed to be king)

Just some stupid shit,

Banal, selfish, but irretrievable time.

And now our hands are irrevocably unclean.

Despite the flesh scrubbed raw,

The filth remains;

(Under the nails, in the sluices of our palms).

We used to wear gloves,

Embarrassed by the stains,

Thinking we were the only ones who had forgotten how to love.

Now we don’t care.

We grew up big, got busy, saved face,

Called ourselves names, filled time with space.

My hands and wrists have long been bare.

4/4/18