I like to start the writing day with poetry; like the choir master sounding a note on his pipe, it sets the standard high (“No approximate words in a… - Julia Alvarez

I'm watching a romantic play
in Plato's cave; half the time I don't
believe in it...
Other times I'm so addicted I'm one of the mainliners...
hallucinating that in truth a man's
body is one of the Absolute Forms.
I look around when the houselights come on
and see no one!

It's UPS
with two parcels! ...
a handsome lad, guesses it's my birthday
and asks how old I am. He acts surprised
he's a decade younger. We linger at the door
one of us is not immortal anymore.

I was driving down the mountain, the curves
were bad, I wasn't going slow, the day
was one of those that takes your breath away...
On hilltops, I made believe I'd take off
into the absolute, but as I swerved
again and again...
and as the sun's
autumnal, soporific light shone on...
something gave in me and I let go—
this driving need to make it all mean more.
In time, I turned the wheel back to the road.