Self-Portrait

Self-Portrait

Between the highs and the lows I go

even-keeled through the continents. I worry.

Where I am planted piles of books

grow, read, unread, and papers, handwritten,

photocopied, printed, bound, enveloped.

Boxes stack higher.

My world is shrinking. I might fight

back, push the constricting boundaries

further away again. Sometimes I tell myself it doesn't matter.

One day it will become clear.

For weeks the days are made up of drudgery and then

the lights come on. I can turn them on myself

by writing.

I walk a lot through the rain and the winter, the heat

and the crisp of the morning, morning after morning,

avoiding the deer. I listen less than I used to.

I see things that aren't there, a woman who has wheels

instead of feet, a four-legged jogger, a tree

in the shape of a rabbit.

I read the letters that are addressed to me, the books

that pull me in, that swallow me whole.

I try to be good. I try to be smart. I try to push back the

shrinking boundaries.

Beside me my walking companions change colors, change

shape, keep time.

Sometimes I don't know myself very well. I try to recognize

myself but it is not what I learned to do.

I love sharing the house with the man who is growing old

with me, I love the three minutes we had in which our boys

were babies and little boys. I love how they are exploding now.

Every morning I eat oatmeal. It warms and anchors me. Every

day I write a poem. It delights me. Every month or so I shed

my skin and start again.

very, very loosely based on Self-Portrait by Adam Zagajewski - maybe inspired by more than based on