After dinner is over, dishes clean,
their porcelain lips stacked in smiles
behind the cupboard door.
 
After your desk is organized,
emails sent, final draft finished,
your to-do list a flock of check marks
like migratory birds flapping
down the column and out
to the horizon of a light-suffused land
called Everything is Done.
 
Finally, you can do whatever it is
you say you've always wanted to do.
Or not said, because naming can sometimes
dilute a dream's dark essence.
 
But there's a bank overdraft to fix,
unread library books to return,
another doctor's appointment,
and these days when you accelerate,
your car makes a screaming noise
like a small trapped animal.
You can picture its curled body
and dark eyes, terrified your speed
will toss it onto the moving parts
of a machine made only to go go go.
 
Maybe, after you get the car fixed,
clear up a few other things,
finally, then, you'll have time. 

 

This poem first appeared in the Great Lakes Review.
Used here with the author's permission.