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SELF ACCEPTANCE
No One Cares If You’re Sweaty All the Time
Ars Poetica
Thinking can be lateral or “sweaty.” For the latter you’re better off in an office and following a routine but for the former you have to be “out of your mind,” so to speak.
— João Magueijo, Cosmologist
You think you can’t live your day like poetry, but you can.
Each cup of coffee, a bitter stanza — the spoon — a line that strays out of rhyme — begins a swirling motion that turns sweet cream into light and meter — and in the evening, the first six ounces of Shiraz will pour a sonnet — fourteen verses descend — legs streak a pristine glass that begs a smudge of fingerprints — it spills — you know you’ll have another — so to wake again tomorrow, pre-set a buzz of free-verse, pile on couplets —
run a comb through tangles,
shed old strands as split ends fray
tacky, the lint roller wraps
your careless edits tight around
clean white tape — it’s no keepsake,
this reversing peel, spent — crumpled —
neatly sacrificed to rubbish — it’s okay;
this line’s superfluous.
