For six days I’ve laid abed,
nursing pillow and blanket,
waiting for the air to say, “Get up!”
No calendar calls me.
Each time I practice the delicate catechism of silence,
another word slips away.
On the sixth morning
I march the interminable driveway
to park garbage pails two feet from the edge of the road.
When Evan wakes, pulls on his coveralls,
kisses his sleeping wife,
eases slipping gears into first, second, third,
pulls up beside the curb of 3817
and lifts the lids,
no two-week-old stench will assault him
or leave his wife shouting, “Go bathe!”
when he walks in the door at six.
That is all.
Let the gods decide if it’s enough.
B. Lynne Zika is an award-winning poet and photographer and a retired editor of closed-captioning. Her father, also a writer/poet, bequeathed her this advice: Make every word count.
