appealing

The Maynard
Spring 2014

Kayla Czaga
0:00
 
 

Poetry Shortage
with a line borrowed from Jack Spicer

Rain again, blurring the world beyond the window.
Days slip off as I sit at my desk, vague
segments, named to give them shape—to say,

on Monday I woke up and constructed a routine.
I ate through my life, sensing it was sufficient
if not memorable. Time does not finish

a poem—no, it finishes us. My houseplants shiver
along with me into another winter of not thriving.
My cat’s wet nose presses cold into my calf, tickles

like new snow. She curls into dark corners
to sleep. I think the world is running out
of poetry. We can’t prove there will be more clear days

to compare to apples. Traffic shucks continually through
the rain, the din of it, muffling my head. The hum
that goes on with or without us, simply to go on. I hate

the things people tell me about art, creativity being this big
event we’re all invited to. To me, it’s always
been an ache I can’t compare to anything

which I try to compare everything else to. I don’t feel it
these days. The same old wind blows over buildings
flapping like a mouth. I still wander, sometimes,

my coat closing the world out of my body, with pockets
full of garbage, with my slender, steady want. I still
make the bed and unmake it at bedtime.