Christmas lights went up early this year
(not a whiff of snow, the pines immature)
to ward off nightmares with forced cheer.
The ground is too hard today. It resists even the spade.
Lillies too are hard, and my heart: hardness in spades.
I ask if truth exists. It’s not a trap. Why lie?
I cannot force you to call a spade a spade.
To my tongue, honeysuckle tastes fibrous and bitter, like
any common shrub or vine. I only know its sweetness indirectly:
hummingbirds guzzling the nectar like a newborn
her mother’s milk while I sit in the shade and imagine
a branch soaked in honey, my head forced back,
sugar dripping down my throat like a panacea.
I dreamt I was a kelp forest swaying in pitch-
-black waters. Above me moonlight fluttered
like confetti and seagulls roosted on cliff-sides
and buoys. An oil tanker drifted by, the workers
Near-half want me dead.
It was all a joke they said.
Love pulls just ahead.
I’ve been staring at the wall for hours,
wondering why the paint won’t peel off,
what’s holding the plaster together.
My son and I spent weeks assembling
a Lego car, 3,000 bricks of hard plastic
intricately connected to form a whole.
The adults hurry to their cars as the bell rings,
the crossing guard sips his water, takes off his vest:
Today the children will read of warriors and kings…
When you have run out of courage;
when every day is a loaded gun
and your hand is not on the trigger;
when you have given all you have
to give and still disaster looms;
Like the pile of books on my nightstand,
like the ever-falling leaves
in the yard,
my worries accumulate.
I am the Founder & CEO of Capital Good Fund, a nonprofit social venture seeking to tackle poverty through financial services. I am also a writer, poet, cyclist, and avid reader. Enjoy my blog!