has a perfection that haunts
me,
like the oracular whine in the
cabin of an airliner
sailing over Ohio.
Something transient, the lack
of judgment
gifted to time neither end
nor beginning, nor yet even
middle:
some minor point in the
development,
often missed by fast readers,
where
the characters are quietly
putting on
their humanity like early
spring jackets:
a favorite word, a particular
thoughtful expression
that comes over one’s face
when listening to music
or writing out French homework,
trouble falling asleep, trouble
waking,
an inclination towards cloud
architecture,
a mild hatred of cats, a
violent affection
for a certain sitcom.
The events of Wednesday will
swallow these things.
On that absurd and turbulent
day,
someone new will hate us,
we’ll make Grandma angry for
the first time
in twenty years,
we’ll be falling in love, we’ll
get chased
by a nasty neighbor’s poodle,
we’ll save someone’s life,
we’ll run over a pregnant
opossum
and feel evil for days.
But for now,
the sky as yet dim and bland,
the waking dog
raising its nose to the fading
moon
and the Pop-Tarts hot in our
hands,
let us drink up the perfection
of Tuesday.
