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Work

Laurel Snyder 

I want to hurt you, all you easy places. I want you
to really bleed. Sunday Morning and the daylight
pushes through me, against me and through the happy
window. The paper falls heavy on the table, then
the newsprint itches my capable hands. Now,
the smell of coffee, and the cat pushing through it
to a very soft footstool. I'd like to quit this,
but I can't move myself, can't pick up my hatchet
and chop through this very soft day.

No person has the right to be happy. It isn't nice
to be a lover or a sister or a child of someone else.
Either you have breathable air and the ground feels flat 
beneath your feet, or you live in my world,
in my little house, on my tiny street, in my small
town where the dishwater wrinkles my capable
hands like it should. Where the dandelions have to be
pulled by the roots again each year. Where
I push into my spiny life and my spiny life pushes back.
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