Emily Kirchner

This is a poem for the times nobody writes poems about.
Monochromatic, not dramatic.
This is an ode to those moments ingrained in our backdrop,
The screensavers of our lives,
These are poements, too.

This is a poem for hour-long lines at the DMV.
The list of required items is a Tolkien quest.
If you want a new ID, just bring: Your birth certificate,
Social Security card,
A lock of your great grandmother’s hair
(exhume her from the grave if necessary),
An ancient coin from Atlantis,
And a bag of shrooms
to make the waiting room a little more interesting.

This is a poem for filling out budget sheets
that force me to make eye contact with my spending
When I’d rather bury my head so deep in the sand
I would find the lost catacombs of Egypt.

This is a poem for bad dates that aren’t even bad enough
to make a good story.

This is a poem for the disgusting moments
That can’t be perfumed with poetry.
A poem for cleaning cat litter.
Trying to find a poem
in these situations
is like panning for gold in a litter box.

This is a poem about changing diapers,
Which feels like being on a game show
where either prize behind that mystery door
is something you don’t want.

This is a poem for late night shifts
When florescent lights hum out of tune,
The coffee machine drips rhythmically,
And sleep is your coworker
Who can only arrive after you’re gone.

This is a poem for being stuck in traffic.
In the seat of a car,
you sit in a paradox,
Moving while staying still.
In traffic, the ellipses
Shrink down to a period.

This is a poem for being put on hold
Until you and the dial tone have in-jokes
and know all each other’s secrets.

This is a poem for a six-hour job seminar
Where your boss reads from an ever-expanding list
like a beard that he shaves, but it keeps growing
As he tweezes out words one by one.
There is a Power Point locked and loaded with bullet points.
It’s like a Catholic mass with the fifteen-syllable “amen”
Drawn out, a roll of tape stuck to your schedule.

All of these moments deserve a poem
because life is a series of waiting rooms
Where you want your name called, and you don’t.

These moments aren’t poems.
They’re the supporting blue lines on paper
Holding the words’ weight,
and we need them.
If there were no blank pages
How would we fill them,
Waiting in line
with the lines that wait in us?
This is a rhetorical question.
Fill in the blank.