Just being here,
which is to say the frying
of omelets, the making of coffee,
the daily crossword
and the broken heart,
is almost enough. Today
I folded towels and stacked them
in the closet. I brushed my teeth
and sought magpies
through the window. Today
I held my daughter’s
plastic dinosaurs and watched
the stars she stuck on the ceiling
a decade ago. Today I made myself
glad with the almost,
and read a Neruda poem
chosen at random
and Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room.”
Today I was pretty good,
and pressed my mother’s
wedding dress for no reason.
I didn’t drown or berate the rain.
I ate potato chips.
I drank two beers.
This is the work of life;
this is what it means to be
in silence and await tomorrow’s.
Carl Boon is the author of the full-length collection Places & Names: Poems (The Nasiona Press, 2019). He received his Ph.D. in Twentieth-Century American Literature from Ohio University in 2007, and currently lives in Izmir, Turkey, where St. Paul trode. He teaches courses in American culture and literature at Dokuz Eylül University.