Photo by Pawel Czerwinski
Revision
Joanne Esser
The trouble with the present is
it’s a lot of work.
You have to keep redoing it,
every day a rewrite
in the face of new plot twists
that insert themselves, unbidden,
into the narrative you had planned.
Not like the past, a well-plotted novel
that always ends the same way
no matter how many times you reread it.
But now, you never get to the ending.
You can’t be sure the good people win,
that anyone is safe, or that love
can be counted on to last.
You have to come back to the desk
every day, pen poised to give order to
complications galore, the dizzying array
of windblown fates and intentions
that have been swept out of the blue
into your doorway today.
Joanne Esser
The trouble with the present is
it’s a lot of work.
You have to keep redoing it,
every day a rewrite
in the face of new plot twists
that insert themselves, unbidden,
into the narrative you had planned.
Not like the past, a well-plotted novel
that always ends the same way
no matter how many times you reread it.
But now, you never get to the ending.
You can’t be sure the good people win,
that anyone is safe, or that love
can be counted on to last.
You have to come back to the desk
every day, pen poised to give order to
complications galore, the dizzying array
of windblown fates and intentions
that have been swept out of the blue
into your doorway today.