Small Talk

Some days small talk is all I have. For family . . . for friends . . . and with those daunting lines waiting for me beneath my pen.

Photo by Scott Gummerson on Unsplash

Small Talk

Today let’s just chat 
about the weather—

you peer up at me
with polite formality

trimmed in the clean-cut
lines of your refinery

and grin into the feign 
of my curtsy . . . 

when I tell you again 
where I’m from 

that kids keep me busy, 
and work’s to be done;

yes, I write some,
if it wants to be said

and you ask me to dance
and I say yes

and we waltz,
pen whirling the pad— 

but now my unruled 
hands are still

and we need rain 
is all I have.