Disposition: Calamity

I've Always Assumed the Worst. Now...I'm Working On it.

At six or seven

I saw a man’s legs under his car

Run over, head crushed like a tomato!

Screaming, I

made my father turn around, drive back.

The legs had vanished, and the man they belonged to

sitting on his front porch

hammering out his tail pipe.

What is the very worst thing that could happen?

If you haven’t gotten home,

you’ve been in a terrible accident.

If you don’t pick up your phone,

you will never speak to me again.

My six children were constantly kidnapped and killed on their way home from school. It was devastating, really, until they walked in the door.

I have been working on this.

Today, for instance, my dog won’t come

because he’s sleeping in another room.

My husband doesn’t answer his phone

because he is on a conference call.

My friend is not avoiding me,

just taking a nap.

Today the gathering clouds are puffballs,

this empty feeling, hunger;

its solution,

ice cream.