EXCUSES

To be the very consequence of right now, I will
first require a cleaner studio, a sorted desktop, better light,
and a woman who picks up my socks and does everything
else that a woman who would pick up my socks
would do.

To be the very consequence of right now, I think
I shall require something else. Once I figure that out,
then I will get back to the sort of work I would like to be
known for.

But right now, I am the consequence of my own excuses;
My own faults. My own fables. My own broken ideals
from a past that would not lend the future all I needed
back then.

Right now, I am the consequence of history— burning in a pan,
stinking up the room I sit in, writing poetry instead of painting.
But at least it’s something— or that I was, not very
long ago.