Frivolous Quill

how long
should you
hold
another’s gaze
down a narrowing corridor or
a door open across
a sparsely square or bless
the victim of a multifaceted sneeze
before it becomes
awkward, leaving
you, each, flailing beneath
the weight
of compulsory debt?
or
is this a meager cross borne
by a meager Christ longing to
save the world
with his hands?

‘Nikki Haley…signed Israeli artillery shells with the inscription “Finish Them!” on a Memorial Day visit to Israel.’
The Guardian, 5/28/2024

Fewer things anger me
morely than a passive-
aggressive ‘Please advise’,
leaving me to name
and solve the obvious
because you can’t be
bothered. Here
let me bear that for you,
make your life
easier, simplify my pain
to bullet points and action
items. Even highlight
your part, your role,
your responsibility so that
you are doubly-helped by
me, the adult with lists checked,
bills paid, you, comforted.

And I always sign
my work, affix my name to
assume my portion, my
burden. Yet I also
know how this message will find
you. Anxious, ambivalent, a little
tired. Which is why I’d never presume
to sign my name to your wellness, even
hopefully. Because I know this
will always find you. Here or there.
Gaza or Israel. Email or
ordinance. My name will find
you, whether you are well.

I once grieved beneath insistent deadlines.
Looming, sharp, pointy expectations brushing

my head. The world holding its breath
between life and death as if I held

the cutters, trembling, over the blue
no red no yellow wire. But what have I

ever so urgently accomplished that couldn’t
have waited one more? Waited for a second

opinion, for Christ’s return, for waffles,
for forests to reclaim the Earth for

my fingers circling the length of your
back as we fall asleep?

If,
in the midst
of your holiday roast—
ascending, beforked,
from your holiday plate
to your holiday mouth—
receive from me a vexing
imperative to ‘Meet
Christmas!’, please
remember that I
and technology are disequally
fickle and imprecise.

Of regardless I do
so wish you both
a lifelong and joyous
acquaintance.

Why must everything
be a thing? Why
does every leaf-fall end
in catastrophe, every
botherant molehill rise
to become a Homeric
mountain we scale again
and again and again when
the wind is so welcoming,
the sun so undemanding, the
clouds so driftingly unconcerned
by our dwindling peaks while we
ignore the view?