The fleeting given, you are grateful
for the brevity as much as the bestowal,
the sage advice, the marrow, the clawed out
eyes of your anxiety— if our outsides
matched our insides, everyone would scream
and run away— a tiny wish stays hidden,
penitent remains, let us be as divided
as a wishbone, picked clean by scavengers.
I’ve lost the plot.
You empathize
the homeless woman hiding her trove
under a butterfly bush in the parking lot
of your corporate office, still
you turn away, or so your privilege won’t hurt
her pride, or vice versa.
Our eyes take in what our brains can’t process
for our mouths to say. Why don’t we do
anything of substance?
We have always hated mirrors
for reflecting our flaws.
V.C. Myers work appears, or is forthcoming, in Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, The Minnesota Review, Tar River Poetry, Spillway, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Entropy, and elsewhere. She has lived in Ireland, England, and West Virginia.
