Out Like a Lamb

Choices

O I love my little choices, whether unimpeded or as mere illusion:
rye toast over wheat, fresh marmalade instead of store-bought jam
I buy cream-colored curtains, leave the paisley red ones on a shelf
reject urgent messages from media, instead a brief perusal of news

renewing friendships from past places, allowing some to fall away;
the space after your unkind remark in which I shape my reaction
or my rushed & angry answer, instant & without the briefest pause;
the poem I could have written here, gone to naught before begun

the man I could have married, dead, or lost to me across the world
other parents to adopt me after my abandonment as bastard babe
(might have raised me to be kinder, might have raised me to concur)
on this couch in this brick house on this street in this pretty little city;

could I have chosen other circumstances or another place or time
in which to sit, deciding, whether to write this using form, or rhyme?
I let the questions lie unanswered, let the mysteries be as they are
content with pepper on my pizza and a wink upon my morning star.



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April 22—Free will (or not?)