Paul ‘just a girl’ Newman

‘All of it’, I think. Sure enough, I do all of it.

I breathe and perspire, laugh into a 

deep sigh, weep, sweep and carry

my spirits to the beat of ‘Hail Mary’. 

Apparently, I dress like cousin Larry,

I come and go much in a hurry.

I sit and stand and ride a static bike 

across some land. I fall

in love, I hope to marry. 

I do my laundry all wrong

when she calls and says

I should have systems

in place to replace a 

systemic failure to fulfill

simple tasks. I did ask.

I watch the news and hope to live through it. 

I buy cheese and milk and coffee and

sure enough greed made me do it.

I open a book, I open two, 

I hate my forehead creases from 

frowning from fronting for a fool.  

I feel sublime, astute,

a little slow in the afternoon.

I’m not alone, I’m sure.

Even when I sit to write I do

so fatefully, mother-sent and father-fed.

Despite the contradiction,

Despite the neck contraction

from needing my bed,

despite being spent and bent in awkward places, 

I kneel to pick up the oven paper.  

I see stars when I touch the ground.

I have seen stars before, about a cloud,

but I remember them farther out.

As in worlds farther– as in 

definitely not in my kitchen.

Still here they come corralling, 

carolling comically around

an awkwardly bent man. 

Why do stars arrive with pain? 

Why not wonder, joy, or with that song ‘Lorraine’? 

Why does pain arrive with stars?

Why not thunder, crows or throngs of ants 

that may bear it diligently away? 

Why does one need the other? 

Who first laid a hand on their grandmother’s 

stove and discovered 

stars? 

And why is it we all followed suit?

What is it pain has come to render? 

A star-crossed pursuit?

Man’s cosmic surrender?

Sorry- what was the question?