Rendered

Every day,

the grocery store poet said to me.

Every day I write my list of things to cross off.

Every day,

said the car mechanic poet.

Every day I shape letters out of oil stains on concrete,

on coveralls,

on receipts for services rendered.

Every day,

the dog walker poet said to me.

Every day I pick up shit in my bare hands.

I looked at her with sad eyes.

The day was wilting slowly,

like it was uncertain of the time.

I could smell someone smoking a cigarette

out behind the cafeteria.

A large military cargo plane pushed its way

through a slow sky.

But I,

said the dog walking poet,

was the first one to hear the peepers.

I could taste the air like a worm tastes the earth.

Place it on me, the dog walking poet said.

And I placed the fanged spider upon her curled pate.

You could do worse than writing poems about dog excrement,

she said.

I thought I should call a financial planner.

My metal tool shed is slowly disassembling itself.

A poem, she said, could be about compost.

All the things you did not eat that day.

Dean at Home: The Pandemic Blog