K. S. Hodges

tomorrow keeps on

         tomorrow keeps coming.  not hard to understand
         that she thinks about dying.

         it keeps coming with unread magazines mounding on
         the tv tray and bill inserts and one-time-only specials
         skipping them takes a chance - that somewhere
         in the fine print, in the last paragraph, is a clue
         to whatever is wrong, a code to lock up the future.

         it keeps coming with a parade of grass weevils and
         box elder bugs around the edges of the rug
         a centipede in the water puddle below the sink
         beside the refrigerator, a string of ants mounting up
         below the glass door, squeezing through cracks.

         and there is a letter and a bill and a maintenance
         circular, and they must be filed somewhere, in her head,
         and planned out, and answered, and laid to wait
         where they cluck and chirp on the side counter, so
         she jumps a little when she passes and the mound shifts
         a bit in its breathing, a little sigh, an exhalation.

         and there is a kiss that she cannot receive, and a smile,
         and packs them neatly in bubblewrap and returns them.

         then sits down and cries, the can of bug spray
         clasped tightly in her hands, spraying the shifting
         mound, the doors, the sills.  but tomorrow keeps coming.