REPAIR
The rain showers won’t stop returning,
as if someone needs to make a decision.
Haggard doves and delivery vans
prowl around morning’s scene
of general disaster. At the café
we don’t really pay attention,
we are reading the East Bay Living section,
the comics, the reviews, the April travel
ads. Every now and then
one person looks up,
and down. We all think
we are in the same lifeboat. And we don’t
delude ourselves lightly—
we go about it with the same care you take
with newborns, with pastries,
with the Christmas present you unwrapped
once, in the middle of the night, underneath the tree,
knowing too much to sleep,
a longer distance ahead,
love oddly steadier for the disappointment,
and hope only slightly blemished.
—from Rattle #25, Summer 2006
__________
Nina Lindsay: “Working as a children’s librarian in Oakland, California, I find poetry mostly on lunch hours, public transportation, or in the bleary early morning hours at my local cafe, on Post-its and the back of receipts.” (web)
