Morning Couplets

This morning dance we invent of up and shower, and up,
and you make me a sandwich and I kiss you to work.

Tucked into this room of furniture, galloping
cats, a computer, and yesterday’s news piled high to ceiling.

We clear away the walkways and dream of three bedrooms,
a space to pursue and unattached walls to inhabit.

The shower echoes the Monday rain, alert;
a deep drone to signify a yawn, as water stretches and pounds.

A small flashlight in the closet, and the cats jump
around you; I watch, in fetal position, not ready for today’s clothes.

And, again, the earth makes its weary rotation
around a new moon, another month to howl at.

A home for my books, that other place I escape to;
the wet sky outside, my warm robe, the reluctant push to go out.

There is the writing that takes place before the actual
writing. The daily work I go to and the stillness of ending night.

An old man in the above suite moves furniture, drags
chair legs and bangs on walls all night; he tries to find
a living space – goes nowhere.

A careful eye on the clock, tick-tock, the sleepy seconds
rushed to write and create a day before I am chained to a different desk.