Linda Studley

Dropped Tissues

Right, so, every now and then I get a glimpse
just a chance glance at the past and it looks
like a trail a snail might leave,
sorta slimy, you know, but really it’s just
a trail of used tissues. The ones you blow
your nose on but then there’s nowhere to put them
so you tuck them into the wristband of your
sweater and forget ‘em and eventually let ‘em drop behind
till you find them like an unappetising line of
bread crumbs to the past.
 
Then I look back and down and all around
at the fingers tugging my sleeve and bugging me to
leave the past and do the present ‘cause it’s now and
how can we move ahead, get fed, if I don’t focus on the
folks that need me now and here and here and now
and now the day is over and they’re all just more
dropped tissues.
 
The future is beckoning and I’m out of my reckoning because
it keeps on shifting and drifting and staying just out of reach
as I trip over tissues and issues and self inflicted misuse of
God given talents and I balance my weight on the edge
of this day and say it doesn’t matter if it’s
past, present, or future,
it all makes me tense.

#36