It's too late, I've already decided
I'm not going to write this
poem about it. I'm telling you:
it was nothing. A paltry commodity,
hardly suitable as an article
of deep contemplation—just something
ubiquitous, easy to miss
as a mustard seed buried
in halfway-decent soil—like one
of six dozen flathead screws
holding great grandma's baby
grand piano together—
like one little pretty pink
earlobe of a seashell,
on one of those endless glossy
Thomas Kincade shores
on which there's millions;
even now, I can't even explain
how it managed to worm its
way into this sentence. There was
no reason to keep it—it wasn't
a memento, there's nothing in it
which suggested my favorite
corporate logo in its shape,
no connection to some
old girlfriend's
light-thirsty birthstone,
no talisman of those
couch-surfing, "No School
Special" good old days.
It's just something
I almost stumbled over
earlier this morning while walking,
head down, furiously toeing
the slick razor's edge of the
overly-urbanized avenue,
trying to picture
my hypothetical reaction
to sudden loss
of cabin pressure, and
rather too aggressively
trying
to get the hell out of
my own
way a little faster.
