6AM – Dan Schell

There is a time for poetry
but it is not 6AM;
leftover humidity hanging
from baking the day before,
wife washing dishes before
her long commute;
loving puppy biting
in pack play,
her teething turning
knees and forearms
into tender toys;
neighbors idling cars
and sipping from travel mugs
that smell like coffee even
after wash upon wash:
clean coffee.

She mutters at the sink,
“This is insane” and she is right,
to wash dishes at 6AM;
the poetry of the kitchen
will never get those mugs clean;
stress isn’t what we need;
suffering isn’t what we need;
nor politics nor police
nor portrayals of betrayal.

No, I will not like your status update.
No, I will not comment on your page.
This is my war,
here at 6AM.
This is a war on life,
a war on dish-washing,
a war on poetry,
a war on the morning,
pausing before taking the shot
before I blast away
at the ticking time bomb
of another difficult day.

Published in See Spot Run, Alma College, December 2011.

Published in Collected Poems, 2016