Excuses Being
Considered When Not Writing a Poem
by Lisa Cihlar
The toilet
needs cleaning,
cleanser is on
the shopping list.
The sheets
need washing—
they smell
like one night too many.
My husband is
still wrapped
in them,
rubbing his winter dry feet
together like
a sandpaper cricket.
The grocery
list looks like this:
birdseed (it
has been a hard winter)
cleanser
(aforementioned toilet)
kitty litter
(the slut cat’s in heat and wakes me in the night, yowling)
limes,
chicken, tortillas, red and green peppers, cilantro, shredded cheese (a dinner
of fajitas)
coconut cake
(reminds me of my childhood)
Clementines
(still in season?) maybe bananas?
How can I
write a poem
when I have
never found an arrowhead?
I have dug up
toads, wireworms, pale grubs,
red spider
mites like tiny drops of velvet blood.
I have husked
sweet corn, found a caterpillar still chewing,
and cut it
out, but I can’t put that cob
on my plate,
so it goes to the person
who wasn’t
there to help with peeling
and silk
brushing.
The poems I inherited
from my grandmother:
a shadowbox of
dead butterflies,
a catalog
filled with pressed flowers,
a chinoise.
On the news
today they report
more than a
thousand World War II veterans die every day.
I don’t know a
single one to name
in a poem.
~ first
published in The Rat’s Ass Review
