Planes That I am in Do Not Crash

/, Blesok no. 31/Planes That I am in Do Not Crash

Planes That I am in Do Not Crash

Sophie B. Hawkins
Toward Lethe
Window Box
Planes That I am in Do Not Crash
First, Inferno (i).

i.
I dab Bactine on my cut hands,
the hospital smell
a calm among accumulating lists,
like paper knives lashing
my skin. On the television:

write a new poem, take out the trash;
in the foothole of my worst pair
of shoes: get your Ph.D., email your sister;
under the cat:
buy litter, Bounty, soap, and learn Polish.

Next to the lists where nothing’s crossed
off, columns of numbers
measure my trudging through the bill month.
I wash sheets in the
meantime, trying to keep my night life smooth glass

because I dream of paper
piles of it, like dried leaves
blowing in a squall.
I can’t order them,
or order them to stop. I open my mouth

to the sky, beg for the old scents
that held onto me
the minute I stepped off the school bus
and into my mother’s arms:
newsprint, antiseptic, chocolate chips.

AuthorMelissa Fondakowski
2018-08-21T17:23:32+00:00 March 1st, 2003|Categories: Poetry, Blesok no. 31|0 Comments