She Can’t Write

from Out With Lanterns, a daily poetry practice

She can't write if there’s a mess in the kitchen. 
So she tackles the dishes because it’s clear what to do:
Rinse, put in dishwasher, add soap, hit start. 
If she goes to the office to write, she sits down, 
writes a scene,  doubts herself, 
feels momentarily brilliant, 
then soon decides she is a moron. 
She reads what she wrote yesterday
which is a terrible idea because 
the sentences are dull, the verbs lifeless, 
the point non-existent. 
She wishes there were more dishes
to do. She does laundry instead 
because there are always dirty clothes. 
She notices more mess in the kids’ rooms,
tidies, puts their stuff away, imagines
there’s still a little time to write before
they come home, but spies a spider web.
She dusts that. Goes to her to-do list:
She calls the plumber. And so it goes.
And so she practices forgiveness.
And so she practices patience.
And so she fumbles towards some kind
of self-love–a badly failing kind–
a kind only arrived at in communion
at a table with other writers who are also
tired, also real, also afraid and unafraid,
and the hope returns because here 
we are. You know? Here we are.