Dark Determinism

by Carmen Eichman

What happens when I crash into that gray slap of sunlight draped across
this road clogged, my own thoughts congested,
this typical work-day morning? Weekend joy disappears
with that occasional, black feral cat outside my window,
beneath the vine covered fence,
vanishes, the two of them, onto the dry, vacant lot on the other side.

Logic and emotion combat, drip a caustic, yet confectionery clarity
I know too well, like an insult tossed carelessly, noisily as keys
on a corner table, its dark determinism directs my day.
Where can I lay these thoughts, spread them out, foreign and familiar,
push away gently their creases, step back to examine their freakish, existential
patterns? If only I could sling them into the wash of what’s past, slam the lid,
grab my purse, leave them in my apartment.

But like the sunlight, the cat, the keys, my patterns, their cerebral combat ,
connect to and tick behind my hazel eyes, a collaborating continuum,
exquisite in its perfunctory timing and
pestilent punctuation.