I Wouldn’t Call It Singing
Avril Thurman

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i.

I read a poem.
I stood in the howling shower. I read your poem.
I pitted an avocado, poached an egg, I drank the beer my sister made.
I read his poem. I admit to owning decaf coffee. I use too much cream.
I like Thai iced tea because food coloring is the only thing that makes it orange.
I read her poem, “I am twenty-one”. I turned thirty-one a week later.
I ate king cake but never got the plastic baby. I took the tiny elevator to the top of Carew
Tower.
I went out for steak and asparagus and potatoes, for burgers and fries and tripel dares. I
haven’t eaten any ice cream for weeks. I broke a beer glass with my foot before I got to
drink the beer inside it.
I read a poem.
I watched a meteor fly over Siberia on the internet.

ii.

I want the plumber to arrive.
I don’t want to write a poem.
I want to get my kitchen sink fixed,
and my bathroom sink fixed,
and my shower to stop howling.
The landlady called it singing, I wouldn’t call it singing.
I would say that if I heard that sound in some Scottish highland, or bog or swamp, under
a mist of bog fog in the middle of the night, I would get the hell out of there, and no one
in the village would believe me, or dismiss it as legend, to be printed in the sidebar of a
travel book under the heading “Local Lore”.
I like lemons all right. I like the flavor of them as a crème between two ginger cookies,
but I have no desire to live in one, nor wait all day for it to turn into lemonade.
I don’t want to wait for the plumber,
I want to write a poem.
I want to talk to you about it.