Member Poem

I startle as if a severed head
sits next to the kale— 
that expensive orange box 
wrapped in French curlicues,
Brut Champagne writ large,
a chilled rebuke in flowing script.
 
I slam the door,
a twinge radiating to my cheeks.
Recriminations cascade like steel balls 
in a Pachinko game,
 
So where's your Pulitzer?
Your Oscar?
Your champagne-worthy moment?
The evil troll spews 
as I crunch into my apple.
 
But then I hear it,
a small voice through the gnashing din— 
What about today?
 
This day of hair-braiding and egg-scrambling,
moments lost in Kandinsky coffee swirls 
as soccer cleats are jammed into backpacks.
 
This day spent perched at my computer,
expectant, like a visitor to a butterfly garden,
ready for the muse to light at any moment.
 
Is it possible that today,
wrapped up in the twine of ordinariness
is worthy of the good stuff?
 
I could break the seal on its elegant tomb,
raise a glass to life in medias res,
a day without a trophy's high-gloss burnish,
yet still deserving of bubbles
and clinks
and crystal flutes.
 
I crunch again and ponder 
this subversive act, 
grinning at the idea 
of a champagne tickle in my nose
and an empty spot in the fridge.
 
 
                             (from "Rolling up the Sky", Homebound Publications, 2016)