YOUR NEXT TWENTY-SEVEN LINES

Your Next Twenty-seven Lines 
 

the snow melts not yet not yet
but soon
and it's still cold enough that you really should wear your shoes
when walking out to the car, again, having forgotten the script you are memorizing

so anyway you just go in the your feet and track the snow back in
but it feels good in a freezing sort of a way like

yes I can walk barefoot even in winter St. Francis,
so there, stigmata or not, I can do that. 

the glass though fell off the counter when you were trying to make tea
and being barefoot that can lead to the kind of thing that it led to
in fact, some slivers embedded, like diamonds, in the soles of your feet

but the tea was good, after all, red zinger (as it used to be called)

your nightly custom now to take a cup of such herbal brew

perhaps to make it seem like you have something to do before you go to sleep
or even pretending you are sort of making a cup of tea for someone other

than just yourself, as if there were to be communion.
 

climb or rather hop upstairs, bleeding from foot and soul,

get on the machine,
and try to sketch out your next twenty-seven lines,
hoping it might make some difference somehow.

it doesn't.

the sun shines not yet not yet
but soon

or maybe not at all

still, it feels good in a painful sort of way like

yes I can spell my soul even in darkness Wordsworth,

so there, abundant recompense or not, I can do that.