Day old bread and this morning’s coffee
tastes like opportunity all over again
I know the milk is off by now, the coffee saccharine
the bread’s crust limp with rancid butter
but so is my forgotten To-Do list from much earlier
written in tired pencil, no room for error
its eraser long since gone
thus goes my life I’m tempted to say
and another day drips off
I didn’t visit my ailing mother
and my father’s ashes still lie here, in an alien country
one that showed itself to him with as much promise
as my to-do list did me this morning
I feed my daughter fried zucchini and finish this poem later.
All I ever am is one man with one day to fill right.
