-After Mary Oliver

You should really try to be good.
You need to scrub the hardwood
on your hands & knees—-it gets dirty.
Do not think of yourself like a child’s stuffed animal,
your loving is heathenous.
Do not complain of your sorrow, I’m sure I have it worse.
Maybe, one day, the world will just stop spinning.
Yet for now, the rainstorms just keep pouring & pouring,
flooding the creek banks, saturating the grass
in the yard, mildewing the plywood lying about,
& just making everyone even more sad.
Yet that damn goose just keeps coming through the front door
& talking my ass off even though I’m in bed with a cold.
I’m tired of all these people in the world with their problems,
their big, unimaginable dreams,
howling in my ear like my damn domestic goose,
over & over again….
maybe one day I’ll get some rest.