Obsessing over vain, useless things is what I do,
and I flatter myself I do it well.
Smoothing my palm
over a cracked marble tabletop
whispering, “Thank You” to a wobbly velvet chair—
it’s me who arranges brooms and mops in a mute,
attractive chorus line before cleaners arrive to
make everything linear again.
I see I’ve frightened you.
I’m sorry. A glimpse of me in the mirror,
hovering behind your shoulder, while you’re locking up—
that would cause anyone to shriek,
to reach for rosary beads or garlic.
And yet, I only want to help, when you’re wide awake
in the cold blue hour of three a.m. and you know
a bullet engraved with the name of your beloved
is speeding through the night air.
Trish Saunders has poems published or forthcoming in Chiron Review, Beatnik Cowboy, The Galway Literary Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Crossroads Magazine, Eunoia Review, among others. She lives in Seattle, Washington, formerly in Honolulu, Hawaii.
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