“Free verse about a day filled with mundane details considered and combined in novel ways in the style of john ashbery”

Light splits in the sink, reflects on the forgotten spoon—  
the coffee tastes like someone else’s morning,  
velvet with a dash of hesitation.  
In the other room, a breeze puzzles around  
the edges of a listless curtain.  
A message half-written—don’t forget eggs,  
the green bottle, yesterday’s urgent yet antique pain—  
lies stilled, jumbled with crumbs,  
both waiting for the quiet hand to return.

Walking to the mailbox, the gravel’s muttered logic  
unfolds beneath my shoes.  
An ant takes a cigarette filter on its back—  
I am an audience for purposes unknown,  
the strip of sunlight by the gate  
illuminating an unremarkable dandelion,  
which is also a sun, a mane,  
a story the sidewalk insists on carrying.

In the living room, shadows remake the armchair  
for a fifth or sixteenth time;  
I see the way dust dances in late morning glare  
with the elegance of dropped receipts,  
how a drip from the faucet marks slow time,  
predicts rain, makes itself  
important until forgotten.

Someone calls. The ringtone holds  
the exact tension between old soap and fresh bread.  
I almost answer, but the dog sneezes,  
reminding me that here,  
mundane is a kind of theater—  
the worn plaid blanket, the distant click of a neighbor’s  
lawnmower,  
all merging quietly in the memory of noon.

Each moment, I collect these parts—  
the way my hands feel soapy after washing the apples,  
the way the afternoon bleeds shyly into the room,  
the jumble of shoes by the doormat,  
suggesting destinations unclaimed.  
In the mirror, my face is not so much seen as  
wondered at, a question  
of what might happen if, for a minute,  
the trivia of hours is arranged  
like bright pebbles in water—  
suddenly, all things shimmer,  
telling me what it’s like to be new.

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