(wanda)

I’ve got the
Wanda Coleman
blues, since reading
how many poems
she has published
– and I have
not.
I let my life
scatter me, like
wheat in the thresher,
tossing me up
again & again.
Each time
I landed
with a thud,
trying to remember
where I’d been,
what I meant
to do
with my life.
I don’t think
it was picking
up bread and cat
food, going out
for bottled water.
Neither was it laundry,
nor cleaning the
house, nor listening
to friends lament
the actions they
never change.
This book says
we have to do
what’s important
before the urgent
demand. And I
have failed
at that.
Trained as I was
to give my life
away, not to some
bold venture
of the heart or
mind, but to
whoever was there
to take it.

2/2/99