Picture beauty:
it’s not what you think,
but a day like this one:
round, tarnished
with the sadness
that just is.
Just is and no need to fix it.
Hard to accept,
how that isn’t cause for grief,
or reason to ignore dandelions
flourishing in a margin of sun
or fail to linger over
the existential plight
of clothespins on an empty line.
You may suspect at times
that this is all a shirt with three sleeves,
and contort yourself,
thinking there’s some obstacle between you and you.
The trick is just to wait
for life to spend you on the sly,
like a foreign penny
at the corner store
on something necessary.
Jeanne Obbard received a Leeway Award for Emerging Artists in 2001. Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Anderbo, and the anthology Prompted.