June 5, 2020

Alas, I lack a mind for business,
that ill-fitting cloak with no contours
or pleats – or the wrong ones – that
swallows me whole, as a child inside
her father's oxford or beneath a bolt
of tent fabric unfurled but otherwise
unused. It should, perhaps could, be
safe under there, but the material
hangs heavy on me, shapeless and
without proper ventilation. I lack the
tailor's sharp-edged and pointed tools,
and wouldn't know how to use them
anyhow, were they to appear on my
doorstep, prepackaged, glinting, even
with a serviceable set of instructions.
I would be just as apt to cut myself –
nay, more so – as to deal as sharply as
necessary to cut the cloth to a size and
pattern suited for the part. I lack a flair
for theater as well, so the course is fairly
doomed. I might as well just admit this
and get on with business of another kind
entire, of a body and mind drawn to
matters of top soil, root vegetables,
small livestock, the effects of gravity on
rainwater – and the piecing together of
words in their celebration and preserve.