Lily Verren

Dirty dishes, two Shredded paper scraps 
pontificating on their crumbs    shove themselves up under 
  the keyboard 

The trash bag 
screams out to me next to 
  the overturned dish soap 
long-forgotten behind the clump of hair and 
   five inches to the left, just out of sight of 
   me, loathe to just pick up the thing 
         and clean the damn desk off anyway. 

 
  The lumpy thing a hypocrite anyway 
clean your own damn self. 

I will do it tomorrow. 

                   The screen of my laptop 
  is bulging out from all my unread emails, 
    threatening to sweep me 
out of the room like a tsunami. 

Create a checklist to fill in 
the hole that craves a polished essay; 
prop the thing up on the nightstand 
as a cruel morning reminder. 

I’ll do it tomorrow. 
 
Make something of yourself: 
Grip your primate DNA with both hands and morph 
into an angel 

Rend your short life into immortal acclaim 
because nothing’s a success unless it’s forever 

Graduate and interview and go into the office because 
your responsibility makes them happy 
(and it’s the right thing to do) 

Fix the world and the nation inside 
the next decade for the next century, 
you will end up “something” 

Do it tomorrow. 

Wittingly We slide into obscurity, only 
influence on (our?) Anthropocene some left- 
over bits of stone, frozen statues 

we walk 
with weaker 
and smaller steps 
Ruin everything to be ruined turned to ash 
against everything our animal bodies know 

I pull the blanket up over my 
fleeting self and whisper: 

Tomorrow.