God had one look
at you in the yellowing
light of birth
and thought, what?
Only God knows, he thought
God knows what.
He thought this one
will command nothing,
not cut out for it, lying
there like a cracked noun
with the hot air
hissing out.
What noun? God
is the only noun
who knows. When you
were just a word
gaining shape
in your mother's mouth
she waited for
the public bus while
it snowed. See?
The poem about money
and disappointment
writes itself if only
you let it. You let it.
Light sliding off
your pointy interview shoes
until the mind
neatly divides
in two. Where clearly
the folded white page
reads savor, in bad
afternoon light you make it any
word you please. Some mornings
you wake up and have missed
your mother's best days
on earth, the crust
of that thought just gently
sizzling off. Sorry.
The afterlife of speech
has always been
an emergency. The seed
that breaks apart, takes note
of the burying earth.
