Wednesday, January 20, 2010

I Worry

like it's going out of style there's only one left hanging on the sale rack and if I don't grab it I will have nothing to wear.

I worry about people like a turtle carries its shell.
Like cherries hug their pits Like bananas sleep in a peel
Like gravel gets stuck in tiny groove-mazes carpeting tires
Like jeans post-pushed in a pool become twenty pounds more & with every bend of a knee feels like your body is slowly turning to cement.

I worry about the people I care for more
than forest fires turn trees into chewed tobacco.
More than Marilyn Monroe wanted true love More than Joe DiMaggio tried to love her
More than indoor lighting gives moths window-bruised foreheads
More than a cat hates to be on a leash.

I worry about the people I love
As I'm falling asleep As I'm brushing my teeth As I'm making a right hand turn into my neighborhood & my blinker is ticking off every minute I haven't told this person or that person how much they mean to me & how I wouldn't be able to breathe if I lost them

As I'm walking from the kitchen into the front yard, a cup of lukewarm coffee in one hand, key to the mailbox in the other, wondering if maybe today I'll have a letter waiting from you, or wondering if tomorrow you'll wake up & realize you no longer want to know the sound of my laugh.

I've tried to get comfortable in this t-shirt of emotional discomfort, sleeves too tight on my shoulders, but I'm worried that if I DO get comfortable I'll forget how lucky I am to have people I love to the point of worrying
like it's going out of style.

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