No time left for rest
Your questions are coloring
Our conversation to brightly, so I slouch
Shrinking to avoid confrontation. I wrinkle
Even though it’s not your sentence to suspend
And compress into a pale stick of chalk.
Dust left on the window like a chalk
Board. I look outside for the rest.
Bleached sky holds clouds that suspend
Water with un-careful scribbles coloring
The ground vivid, reaching every wrinkle.
You talk outside the lines like the rain so I slouch.
Watching the boiling pasta slouch
And the flour, an explosive cloud of chalk
Dust highlighting the wrinkle
On your forehead. You need to rest.
I can tell by the difference in your coloring
But I can’t say that and you say “Suspend
Your disbelief.” But I have too many roots in the ground to suspend
Myself so that people can decide whether I slouch.
Appearances didn’t matter when the sun was coloring
The first morning sky with wet chalk.
Can’t you see I am happy? Give it a rest.
Worrying about me will only make you wrinkle.
I think back to that wrinkle
In time that let me suspend
My worries over the rest
Of my ancestors’ backs that slouch
With bewildered age. Hair like chalk
And too judgmental to be coloring
With anything but pencil. Coloring
My future, but allowing the paper to wrinkle
So that I must do your work and chalk
Out the times when I can afford to suspend
My usual duties and justify the urge to slouch
Away to much needed, and solitary rest.
I didn’t know what I’d do with the rest of the time allotted for coloring
But I sat in a slouch staring at the paper until I could almost imagine a wrinkle.
Now I know even if I suspend my ideas over paper, they can be wiped away like chalk.
