Unrealistic

Maybe it’s unrealistic

to expect to work and be a 

good father and

a poet

to toil with words 

after bedtime and in-between the 

child’s feverish cries against

an impending day in daycare 

It starts to feel pointless 

to write a verse

when there are so many real things

to attend to

as though words aren’t real

inherently meaningless arbitrary 

sounds and symbols

to indicate a thing 

that exists outside

the poem

rather than plugged into it

like those spotted bananas

whose smell has overtaken

the kitchen and 

drawn fruit flies

onto a nearby sketchpad

(the bananas are good drawers)

or the washing machine playing

that little song when it’s

finished a load of drawers

or the sound of my wife

taking the load from the dryer

and putting the warm jasmine scented clothes 

into drawers

It’s no use to play with words

when the blustering wind outside

this poem

could blow the powerlines down

and the sheets of heavy rain

in the washing machine

could overflow the gutters

I guess i just can’t

help myself.