It begins at the end of the day,
when the sun is atoning for
its sins and it is almost night, almost day.
Your shoulders–
they tell you you’re tired and your stomach sings:
Today is where there is no going back from an unbounding
unbeknownst to mothers,
but deities like you, me.
The remorseless sun seems to go back to its old ways.
Your feet begin to ache-
you walk with the dead back home now;
there is an enduring-
you walk, rocking in rower’s rhythm,
a knot tightening, clenching–
Watching the journey
of one setting sun and its weight-
you falling servant of God;
you take, what I take; home…
To pots that aren’t exactly clean,
you must do the dishes, rinse the rice,
light the gas, add salt,
watch it simmer before the plunge.
You must wait,
sometimes pain of some sort must
be felt so that the rice is worth it.
You wait for the rice to soften,
because this is in your control:
soft rice, as always.
Melancholy stops at the door to accompany tomorrow’s walk,
passing neither the threshold
of wet walls nor hunger that unmakes itself.
You prepare for tomorrow and the day after that
and the day that follows the next.
You do not see the difference.
You repeat the same prayers, clothes;
the road you take is the same,
day in, out:
it does not stop–like these tired lungs,
breathing in and out the same oxygen with
sometimes, denser gasses–you’d wish
these pollutions would stop because:
Isn’t there enough pollution already in your life? You ask.
You open the door–
It is the same:
nothing has changed–
the rot at the hinge, the waft of hunger,
and dampness.
Uneven floors…
Dreams on the wall.