Self-Portrait as San Carlito
       

We say in sum to summon some kind
of meaning. When we don't know what

to say, we say um. The instruments
of my discipline are hunger, ink,

a martyr's thimble wrapped in pink.
Wonder drives us if we're lucky.

I'll follow any crumb anywhere
just to be un-numbed. High July—

the humidity is a kind of drumbeat
on the dumb body. Sometimes a place

looks good enough to plunder.
Sometimes a husband says come home,

sometime he won't. But I wouldn't want
such summons. Not that I know what I want:

I'm a statue who's lost her original thought,
a metal stamp with a clichéd i to dot.

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Copyright © 2012 Rebecca Hoogs All rights reserved
from Smartish Pace
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission