blog of poet, leah umansky

The No – Complaint Department

[1]

I don’t want to reopen this, but

I don’t want to conceal the adoration either.

I don’t not want to reopen it, either.  

I don’t want to hear how if this then that; or  it’s not like I’ll  never stop thinking of this or I’ll       always think of  that.

I don’t want any of any of that – lose it!

I want activity.

I want loveliness.

I want selflessness.

I want material.

I want that marriage welded through – soldered.

I don’t want the baloney – it’s hard enough facing the truth.

&  I don’t want complaints.

[2]

I’m putting up a sign: 

[3]

The saturation would supply the evidence.  At one time or another, there was so much to love.  So much in color and hue.  It could’ve been prostituted in its vivacity, but that’s neither here nor                                                                                                                                         there.

                                                There are always tasks:

                                                1. Close the safety deposit account

                                                2. Buy a proper mop

                                                3. Send a thank you card

                                                4. Stop spending

Inventing a backdrop to such chores would be a fantasy.                 [One, I would gladly live in.] 

Can it have:  flowers; pastels; sprayed roses, wood paneling, a claw footed bathtub, and  refurbished upholsteries?

                                                                                    If only this could be reupholstered —                                                                                                                                     [there’s an idea]

[4]

Favoring words, a natural tendency, I can remember           each    little     one      you      said.

                                                                                      — a list of dualisms.

*

According to a big library in downtown Manhattan, some think that blondes are not reliable, but au contraire monsieur, we are the most reliable.  We gravitate to what we love, to what we desire, to he or she who wants and desires  and of course, to what we love about ourselves (and about you!)

I don’t want to cross the past off; I just want to navigate through it.  Us women already have it hard enough.

© Umansky 2011