POETRY

Compensation

Eleven dollars and forty-five cents

Photo by Sarbasri Bhaumik on Unsplash

Eleven dollars and forty-five cents arrived in my bank account this morning for poems that took weeks to write;

words turned upside down, examined for the way they hit the light, that peered into the darkness.

I have sipped my morning matcha with words floating in the cosmic unknown, stretching my imagination like taffy.

I have followed the butterfly like an animated sentence refusing to settle;

walked through the woods where the patter of rain drops messages from the sky; where roots of old oaks carry history older than memories.

I have asked the wren with his plump body and an exclamation mark for a tail why he sings when dawn lifts the indigo sky.

I have peered deep into the petals of a flower and seen the beating heart of the world.

The woman at the supermarket corner with her Shih Tzu, poking out from under her shirt, holds a sign that says, “hungry and homeless” and leaves with more than twelve dollars.

I wrote about the pig-tailed child who buried her mother’s angry words in sand castles.

I lie alone in my bed visiting the dead in my dreams.

All I need from life is to stand on a velvet stage reading my poems while holding a glass of Cabernet, basking in the applause.

But then, I remember, I have stage fright.

Eleven dollars and forty-five cents is enough for me.

Well— maybe twenty-four dollars.

My matcha tea and cabernet aren’t free, and neither is kibble for a Shih Tzu.

Author’s Note: If you enjoyed this, please read and clap:

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