TULIPS AND PAPER TOWELS

 

This was the grocery list I scribbled down

at the end of an unnecessarily

 

busy day. To read those words

on the tiny Post-it Note

 

and then to say them out loud—

which I did many times

 

like a prayer—

 

made me smile. I loved

what my tongue and lips did

 

with the Ts and the Ps.

I needed that smile.

 

I had an ache inside

that I did not want

 

to feel. So I added this errant errand

to my day as another diversion

 

from the bouquet that had just lost

           all its petals, and to avoid the mess

 

I couldn’t clean up,

but desperately wanted to.