—After Mary Oliver

Since you asked, Mary, I’m sitting in traffic 
nowhere near the swan or the grasshopper 
waiting for the light to change, cold December rain 

splattering the windshield, wipers beating like the heart 
of the doe that comes to you in the forest, eyelashes 
flickering over a tender leaf, and yes,

my life is wild, like yours, if the breathless excitement 
of my idling in a gray Honda Accord EX 
with leather seats and 2.4 liter engine 

can be compared to your lying in tall grass 
while contemplating migrating clouds and waiting 
for a grey owl with a valentine-shaped face

to swoop down like darkest death to remind you 
your life is precious. Ah, but you asked me 
what I plan 

to do with my life, and I have described 
a mere moment. What I plan is 
a thrilling day at the office where my Dell 

Latitude laptop will open 
its one wing and pull
me into its black pond where icons

float like lily pads and wait to be nibbled
by a mouse. My office phone will crouch
to the side, a silent bear sunning itself 

in the blaze of a long fluorescent tube 
until I reach for its one black claw. That
is what I plan. 

And before I go further, 
you should know that I planned to be
a pilot, an astronaut, an admiral, 

to learn Spanish, win the lottery, run 
for Congress, but all those fragile parchments 
were rolled up 

and put back into their tubes long ago, leaving me
with the wild and precious idea that tonight, Mary, 
I plan to finish your book. 

From Punching Through the Egg of Space (Main Street Rag Publishing Co., 2010).
This poem first appeared in Iodine Poetry Journal (Spring/Summer 2010).
Used here with the author's permission.