Maya Stein

I am thinking about a poem, which words to use for how the afternoon
is spread out like a picnic blanket, fall coaxing a blush from the trees,
the sun glowing photogenically across that pond in the park
where the geese are collaborating on a meal. The instinct to capture
...

...

Call me lazy. Call me predictable and cliché and overused.
Bypass these lines if your currency is nuance, if what moves you
are the minimalist gestures, if the threads of the crosshatch seams in the couch
are the geographies you'd prefer for your treasure. I can't help it.
...

I should be upstairs with the others, drumming up ways
to heal the world, save the animals, pray for water
in a far-off continent, devote the remainder of my days
to a catalog of restorations. But this morning, it was the matter
...

Last week's snow is almost gone. We've run out of butter and are down to the last banana. The orchid is managing on the windowsill with the weak winter light. The dryer has buzzed its final load, and clean sheets have been stretched over the guest bed. The dog has lost interest in her ragdoll toy and is lying with her head, limp, beside the couch throw.
...

...

So this is where we are,7: 38 on a Tuesday evening, and somewhere in the distance - we can hear it cross town - is an ambulance, spiraling its wail into the streets. Make way, it's saying. The boys down the block make freethrows. We make tacos for dinner. The dog makes a beeline for the water bowl. The dishwasher makes barely any noise.
...

You don't need the sprawl of the interstate, the odometer climbing
and candy wrappers haloing your seat. You don't need toll booths and a pocket
weighted with quarters. You don't need speed limits or state lines or a full
tank of gas. You don't need to wait for solitude. You don't need to wait for sadness.
...

Not from the whirlpool of worry. Not from a bad dream.
Not from a deadline or a string of demands, or the great to-do
of the still-to-be-done. Not from the lopsided weight of futility and failure
or some wayward mutiny shaking your bones. Not from the loss
...

Elyse needs a letter like that
a new best friend from camp
scrawling a farewell with a
promise for more, a play date,
...

The familiar estrangement, a serrated edge accompanying you
to block parties and soccer games and dinner with the in-laws.
While you bluster and bobble, you long for a quiet room with only
a jigsaw puzzle for company, a notebook, a camera, a caress
...