SEIZE
THE DAY
I
wrote a poem to tell you expressly that I’ve always been alone
in
here one vertebra cocked to the side to listen to the painful singing
especially
when I’ve slept on my stomach, a pillow on my head, my
preferred
posture. How is this helpful? How is this new? How
is
being trapped in my own ever-evolving mental healthfulness bound
to
assist anyone else on their journey? Well, a journey of a thousand
miles,
I always say. Anyway, axis mundi, I always say. This is how
it
begins: I call goodbye to someone in the hallway who doesn’t know
what
I’m saying because all my words before noon are plaintive music
and
he says something normal that I can’t hear without my glasses on
and
leaves. I continue my day from in bed by bandying about some
regrets
about an essay on The Narrative of Arthur
Gordon Pym
I
didn’t write. When I’m finished doing that, I hear a door squeaking
so
I put on pants to better fight. I scrabble about under the bed with
my
pointy fingers to find my glasses. Suddenly I am vertical
in
the hallway. I have quite literally put up my dukes. I offer you
this
advice free of charge. You’re welcome.
Joanna Penn Cooper is the author of the chapbook Mesmer (dancing girl press). Her full-length poetry
collection, How We Were Strangers,
was a finalist for the Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books. Joanna co-curates the Stain of Poetry reading series in Brooklyn,
where she lives, and keeps a blog at joannapenncooper.blogspot.com.