To have said.

To have transcribed all reasoning

And tome compilation, to have dipped

Your neurons in honey. To have plodded

Words by the hundred-fold, one finger

At a time. To have doubted yourself.

Has some balding brainiac come to this?

Has no-one? Am I impossible?

To have savoured the golden sentence

Like a lemon drop on your tongue.

Loll. Lull. When a wooden plank is not,

And you cannot cross to the other side.

To pace on swollen heels. Remember,

One thing facilitates another.

Caffeine spikes awareness, suds sop residue.

Now, suds flow like a layer of molasses.

Start the car. Lost in autopilot, no time to think.

Lock yourself in your room, swallow some

Nail-polish remover. Flow, Flow.

In the last leg, somebody tells you

That you are beautiful.

Realize those hours were not so futile.

The children soiled and the husband drank

And you transcended them all. Your arms

Like bridges, held suspension.

Now let them nick the chord.

Fall back, on a terry green chair,

Beneath a complicated ceiling, so new,

You can smell the plywood.

Crane your head for the crowd and smile as goofily

As you can’t handle. The elderly man,

Twinkle-eyed and comfortably tired on the podium,

Looks you in the eye, and tells everyone, now,

That you are beautiful.

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