Margins

It’s where the words that matter fall.
Cursive enigmas and incomplete thoughts
simply will not wait,
will not be consigned to a slush pile
of unsolicited ideas.
They demand hearing.
Phone numbers lacking names,
a list of conjunctions,
and notations about doctors’ appointments
are wedged above the perfect response
to your wife as to why you do indeed “get it.”

A story idea—
a mad Russian anarchist falls in love
with a nun whose mother practices Wicca—
lurks beneath your latest poem:
I was waiting
for your hair
and your shadow
to fall
across my chest
like a sunset
at the base
of Kilimanjaro.

And then there are the lost moments,
the random phrases that were apparently your life
last year or the year before,
all rendered in blue and black ink
pressed into a yellowed page:
lily of the valley
Jane S.
sunflower thankfulness
meat loaf
paraffin wax
Seinfeld tonight
say nothing
panthers

You take out a library book by Kafka.
That night, insomnia turns the pages
until you see there’s always hope
scribbled near a paragraph indentation.
You close the book and sleep,
dreaming that life is a long thin column
waiting to be filled.