You wait all day to write a poem about
pie
because there are other things to do,
and besides
a poem about pie isn’t going to save
the world. In fact,
nothing is. So why worry? Write a
poem about pie. But
the cat limps into the kitchen and
Reace says it might
be arthritis
and you say even so, and I’d better call
the vet and
all this while your toast sits on the counter
getting cold. Some things wait.
Certainly you
were not meant to, and yet here you
are; sitting
patiently on a cracked vinyl chair,
Scout rooting
herself under the towel at the bottom
of the carrier
and you are nothing but patience,
filled with a pungency
of patience. It is a new flavour, one
that always was
missing from your pies, and you put
that into your poem
when you finally sit down to write it.
Scout loses her limp
just in time for the vet tech’s
appraisal, squints at you
on the way home as though she can’t
blame you
but does anyway, curls back up on the
couch
with her miraculous paw outstretched.
Still, you worry.
You sift your worry like sugar, peel it
like apples, open it
like the wire door on the cat carrier. Write
the poem
you want to write,
the toast whispers from the garbage,
soggy under too much cream cheese and
stale, besides.
Write the poem about pie before no one
else will.
the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
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