mmccclxxxiv

Your Clever Glows Over Everything

Situational and stolen.
For my own benefit.
From a few words in
a book that came in a

lovely brown paper bag.
I almost always throw
the bag, the coverlet,
the whatever-you-call-it,

into the recycle bin (the
one we finally purchased
after living here something
like seven years, right?).

“Just who are you talking
to,” glares Coco the Loco,
who’s wrapped into a
skeptical curl—all foetal-

feline alert and everything.
And should I even begin to
answer? I do, in one long
breath, thinking about how

we (us, some bodies) nearly
lost you (you!) to the clover
a couple of months and a
year ago. But you arrived

home like nothing had been
overcome, not even a tiny
hurdle, a C-, so ... alive.
Your clever was never

as apparent as it should
have been. Whereas,
me, I always believed 

that I was the clever one.