WEDNESDAY POEM
Lauren McCollum
An alarm rings.
The ceiling replaces my dream.
What is there
to be done about it?
A bowl of oatmeal
or an erotic
detour of the hand
could tease the daily tangle
of things to do,
but nothing can mediate
the short and sad goodbye to sleep,
that sheeted land of nothing.
The sky is grayer
than my grayest dream, and I’m the atheist
I thought I’d never be.
Once Wednesday
was a night of church and a day for being born.
Now it is another narrow
selfishness.
There is nothing
to be done about it.