Oh Yes Tomorrow Expect the Ordinary

The dogs sing beautifully over everything beautiful
or not—white sleet or white sun—and you have never
yet begun with nothing. Tell your friends to wait. This
will take some time. Imagine a burned house—steamy
sill, dampened ash. Shingle, lintel, coal. An emptiness

spread like soot. Can you even begin to comprehend
nothing? Posit a negative in a positive mind, the idea
of no idea expanding? The dark smell of gone, of you
can't get this back. Consider the stark break between
yes and so often—between no and not yet, some time.

Think hypothetical, absolute. Oh druggery! Oh get me
through this. Every day. Dog song and dander jig your
approach—such joy! Privilege and you so heart-poor.
A poverty of fire. You yourself consumed. But not so
simple. Never as clear as that. Nothing so sweetly entire.

Copyright © 2004 Renée Ashley All rights reserved
from The Literary Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission