Of course, the if’s,
the desperate imagining.
Now throat
a lily pad, breath
an oversize frog.
No wonder
night & day
are such enemies,
take as long as possible
to relieve each other:
the new shapes
of everything, exhausting,
resentful.
Hours, taut, stretched,
turning the mind to
spandex or elastic or
different stressed,
breakable thing.
These are the knowable hardships.
But of the others:
dreams, at least, cannot
be stopped. Alternate
dooms. Alternate
un-dooms. Alternates,
dooming.
It is disgusting, one
might reasonably think,
the smallness
one present
past
future.
They might also
brood into their coffee cup
after a long dark
of if’s. It is understandable
if their spouses leave them.
But this didn’t have to happen,
they chant until their very teeth
hop out of their mouths
and clatter together
towards some hilltop or mountain
to form a strange monstrous
chorus line. Like this could force
a god.
Ruth Baumann
About the author:
My name is Ruth Baumann. I hope to attend an MFA program someday, but until then, I’ll work in a million restaurants. I graduated from VCU in 2010 with a couple Bachelors, and live in Richmond, Virginia. I like all things poetry, cats, and cheese.
