“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
-Mark Twain
Maybe a fire is headed my way—
the curious cloud that seems to drift west—
it happens more than I care to say
that I worry like a hermit obsessed,
or maybe the truck next to me makes
a swerve too close and maybe I crash,
or like a bad dream I can’t work the brakes
and pump into quicksand and plunge too fast
into the railing, or maybe I leave
the oven turned on and it sparks a flame
and like a soap opera burns to the eaves,
and a fire engine’s there when I come
home, or maybe I stumble by chance
on the curb at Starbucks, fracture my wrist,
(I did fall recently, tearing my pants,
my knee just grazed, but my pride took a hit)—
germs from the grand kids, pneumonia returns(?),
my worries recycle, a record that’s stuck,
and then I worry that all fate is earned—
if I worry these things, it might curse my luck,
although maybe the moon will wink goodnight
at the end of the day and I’m still here
and I can regroup for tomorrow’s fight—
or maybe tomorrow the skies will be clear.
