As I looked upon
A mountain of laundry on my
Kitchen floor, garnered from my
Two girls’ rooms, after a thorough cleaning,
Two months overdue,
I wanted to cry. What
A sad reality I seem
To despise…

And, I thought of my life’s fantasies,
My book-lore selves of custody
Of my mind. I thought, ‘If only
I could have what I want!’ Thinking,
I knew what I wanted, knowing
What I wanted was easily seen.
Wasn’t it?

And, I wondered, if I got what
I thought I wanted, was that reality
True, if I didn’t wish for what I had?

Six cats close in from every side,
Pleading, with individual eyes,
For food, for love, for attention.
Not unlike my own early life,
Humanly-divided.

There are delusions
We grasp to be the soul of us,
The soul of WE, even as we forget
What we are trying to remember. I think
It’s called conscience, I think it is the guide
We’ve been wishing for would just be
Itself, would be us, in plain language.

Geez, do you see? I swept
Fantasy under the rug,
With logicity! I hate
When I do that…

Yet, my reality was laundry,
And dirty cat pawprints on the Tahoe,
And supper, and, others, it seems,
to save, animal-wise, anyway.

If I hadn’t been ‘here’,
Where I am now, five newborn puppies,
At our absent neighbors, would be dead,
Dividing my head, again… Because of
Our five dead lost baby rabbits, because
Because is when things go bad…

So, where am I? It feels to me,
I am here, and, I’ll never be
anywhere else,
Right now, even knowing,
Mountains last only moments.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 1/6/05