Three Poems

Waiting to Win the Lottery

I’m sure I will be a better person

when I win the lottery. For instance,

a thing like inadvertently bumping

into the door frame while bringing you

a small bowl of chickpeas and stewed tomatoes,

because that’s part of what we’re having for dinner,

and then spilling, with comic accuracy,

the contents of that bowl onto a displayed

typewriter in the corner of the room, the chunks

and slop of skins and broth tangled

into the keys and hammers and carriage—

a thing like this, as a lottery winner,

will not send me into a spasm of seething,

self-directed rage at my clumsy incompetence. No,

my good fortune, I’m certain, will fund

a newfound nonchalance, an expanded ability

to see beyond myself, beyond these everyday

mishaps, and while I go about tidying up

this untidiness, with the efficiency and

clarity of a calm mind, I will be struck

with appreciation anew for the design and manual

beauty of the typewriter, and I will think,

this is a worthy endeavor, this caretaking

for a functioning piece of the past. In my prosperity

I will be more generous, of course,

but also a man of action, so when I come up with

an idea for an after-school program that is part

typewriter repair and part writing workshop,

I will move decisively to get the project up

and running; there will be scholarships and success

stories and transformative testimonials

from graduates who have told their story and

worked with their hands and found

purpose in a redefined life path and

in interviews I will recount with charming

self-deprecation the origin story that spurred

my passion—all this out of that little mess,

I might say, with an inward chuckle. Yes,

all of this. The jackpot is some hundreds

of millions again, more than enough,

or at least enough to think so.

A Poem for the New Year

We have two rocking chairs.

One we bought. The other

belonged to family and now

belongs to our family. We

don’t really use either

rocking chair. So we could

have zero rocking chairs

or we could have endless

rocking chairs and little

would change except

of course everything.

It is easier to imagine

zero rocking chairs than

it is endless rocking chairs.

Perhaps it’s easier still

to imagine sitting in one

or the other of the two

rocking chairs that we own

every once in a while

moving forward and back

and forward and back and

at last forward. Forward

being the only practical

way to get up and out of

a rocking chair no matter

how many you might have.

Saturation

The new flower pot is orange.

The old flower pot is yellow.

The transplanted jade plant

appears healthy and green

in the new orange pot. A pink

orchid, also seemingly healthy,

is now in the old yellow pot. In the

1970s popular colors for home

décor were avocado and golden

harvest. The television tells us this.

We’re painting the upstairs gray.

In the garden, a yellow squash

plant is turning black at the root.

The corn stalks are drying

with blooms of purple on green

leaves. Hank’s bruises are purple

and faded and yellow-brown and

bright. The tomatoes are orange

and red and yellow and green.

We have an orange cat and a white

cat and a black cat. We have a black

and white dog. His name is Blue.

The yellow-black of the sunflowers

outside stands on green stems along

the white fence, inside the yellow-

black of the sunflowers stands on

cut green stems inside a green

vase, inside a cornflower blue

and white vase, and inside a clear

glass vase, the color of tap water.

Yesterday was a copy of the days

before and I felt all the colors

seethe and thin in repetition.

Today’s colors are the same but I feel

them all and much better.

---

PATRICK SWANEY is an author who received a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Ohio University. He teaches literature and creative writing at Catawba College.