Christine Naprava
Friday Morning
But it’s not working,
my plan for this morning:
to wake,
to wash and hang the darks,
to write uninterruptedly,
to enter work a better person,
renewed and redeemed.
The cat will not allow my mother
to inject it with insulin,
so now we’re all victims of feline diabetes
with elevated glucose caking and corroding our blood.
The coffee is to my liking,
strong and Columbian,
but does not stay hot for long enough,
and for too long,
I’ve associated microwaves with cancer.
The words I beg at the feet of scramble up a tree,
are immune to my goading.
All of the firefighters are out extinguishing flames,
too busy saving lives to help a girl out.
I sneak downstairs to rinse the coffee pot
and dreadfully, I no longer hear the washer machine churning.
I toss the damp, knotted darks into my ancient laundry basket
and trek down to the basement,
snapping and hanging them on wooden Amish drying racks.
I begin to write a poem in my head and dismiss it.
The hours pass insignificantly.
I cannot locate the shorts I wear to work.
They’re on a drying rack in the basement,
I remember,
no time to pop them in the dryer
because I’ve wasted all my time.
I slip into denim, feeling confined,
another reason to curse the day.
I am distracted at work.
My morning did not go as planned,
but I do not have cancer of the face,
as one customer tells me her husband does.
My family vacation does not need to be canceled
because my son has to have emergency surgery
on his nasal passages.
My son did not smash out all four windows of my car
with a crowbar
and then attack my elderly father.
My mother will not have hospice
waiting for her when she gets home.
My father will not threaten me with a metal pipe
in the backyard of the house I grew up in.
It’ll all be waiting for me tomorrow morning.
The darks will dry.
The coffee will go cold if I let it go cold.
The cat will get its insulin if it takes all day.
The words will come down on their own.
my plan for this morning:
to wake,
to wash and hang the darks,
to write uninterruptedly,
to enter work a better person,
renewed and redeemed.
The cat will not allow my mother
to inject it with insulin,
so now we’re all victims of feline diabetes
with elevated glucose caking and corroding our blood.
The coffee is to my liking,
strong and Columbian,
but does not stay hot for long enough,
and for too long,
I’ve associated microwaves with cancer.
The words I beg at the feet of scramble up a tree,
are immune to my goading.
All of the firefighters are out extinguishing flames,
too busy saving lives to help a girl out.
I sneak downstairs to rinse the coffee pot
and dreadfully, I no longer hear the washer machine churning.
I toss the damp, knotted darks into my ancient laundry basket
and trek down to the basement,
snapping and hanging them on wooden Amish drying racks.
I begin to write a poem in my head and dismiss it.
The hours pass insignificantly.
I cannot locate the shorts I wear to work.
They’re on a drying rack in the basement,
I remember,
no time to pop them in the dryer
because I’ve wasted all my time.
I slip into denim, feeling confined,
another reason to curse the day.
I am distracted at work.
My morning did not go as planned,
but I do not have cancer of the face,
as one customer tells me her husband does.
My family vacation does not need to be canceled
because my son has to have emergency surgery
on his nasal passages.
My son did not smash out all four windows of my car
with a crowbar
and then attack my elderly father.
My mother will not have hospice
waiting for her when she gets home.
My father will not threaten me with a metal pipe
in the backyard of the house I grew up in.
It’ll all be waiting for me tomorrow morning.
The darks will dry.
The coffee will go cold if I let it go cold.
The cat will get its insulin if it takes all day.
The words will come down on their own.
Biography
Christine Naprava (she/her) is a writer from South Jersey. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Studio One, Soundings East, Punk Noir Magazine, Literary Yard, The Daily Drunk, Outcast Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, the Lunch Break Zine, and Sledgehammer Lit, among others. You can find her on Twitter @CNaprava and Instagram @cnaprava
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