On a Daily Basis

The thought of it is what one believes,
the nail that has found a 2x4:
its voice, and a place to stay.

You can hang your coat on that.
Your hat, your panties, even
an oversized black plush bathrobe
whose sleeves are always tumbling down around wrists,
sodden with stripes of honey and orange juice.
The dishcloths from Ikea are thin and sickly,
though their performance in-sink
is perfectly serviceable.

Still there’s the thought of it, or at least
— the thought of the thought of it
or the memory of the voice that spoke the thought of it in the mind
— or the residue of the memory of the thought of it,
and the synaptual path that one might take
to get there again,
which is what one believes.
Which is the great difficulty
of hope.