Morning Couplets

The quiet push to be writing, submitting, creating; the pull of work
and an urgency of time to be clean, ready and fed.

We join our finances, make a solid foundation;
a pool to pull together our lives, and our pursuits.

Drive in our car, buy our groceries,
expect my parents for dinner – share our union.

Yesterday, I stayed in my crusty shell, looked desperately for a beach, somewhere
to retreat and be in the salt; I don’t know why the urge seems so easy.

This morning we touch lips lightly, and I hear you stir my tea, as always,
an offering; a quiet word, mouthing “I love you” as you go out the door.

Shifting gears in a parking lot, I swerve around the invisible cars; gear down,
with the radio on low. After hours, lights on, I learn to be calm.

My voice swells like a small ball in my throat, expands into sound,
commits me to brave tasks – makes me be heard; I begin speaking in poems.

On the street, they wake up to the same day as yesterday, and glide through it sleepwalking, swerving, jabbing and bullshitting.

I walk past the unemployed, lined up, hopeful for a little more,
or the ones hovering nearby, downtown philosophers, guarding their shopping carts.

Our cat tries to get to the ghost in the bathroom, scratching
the door. He wants someone to be awake, and to follow him nowhere.