Living With Poetry

I have somehow developed a reputation at work for being "organized", an adjective that I am always surprised to hear applied to myself. Someone once told me, "I imagine you have everything all together at home, as well", at which point I was torn between nodding somberly in duplicitous agreement, or laughing so hard that coffee came out of my nose. If they only knew...

Today's NaPoWrMo challenge #5 is to Make Your Poetry Personal. "Give poetry, as you write it, a name. Possibly a gender. And a personality." There is a split personality between Organized Me and...well, this poet I live with, who is frankly, not a great roommate, and a bit of a slob to boot.


Living with Poetry


For starters, she's not one
for washing her hair too often.
I've seen her wear nightgowns for dresses,
sometimes faintly stained
with a splash of last night's sherry.
She doesn't seem to mind.
She doesn't seem to mind
much of anything; she just gazes, mostly.
She's big on staring
for hours at one tiny thing, enraptured
by something you and I can't even see.
If I didn't know
better, I'd say she had a touch
of the autism. Or maybe
the Asperger's--she says things she shouldn't
all the time, then blinks
with slow and vague surprise at peoples' anger.

It's like she's never known what a clock is.
It's like she doesn't understand
the urgency of lists, that there are things
in this life that must be done, and done on time.
She has a reckless
disregard for money, buys pears and
costly olives, wildflowers, paint.
Never knows when rent is due.
Never knows the day of week,
or when it's time for the dentist,
or how much flour we have left for bread.
Apparently, she can't be bothered.
Admonishments, I've learned, are useless.

She'd rather listen
to the strange hum that only she can hear.
She'd rather sit there, scribbling away,
and staring out through
the far horizon of her mind,
unreachable by anything but
dragonflies and grass.

--Kristen McHenry