A fresh rose

stands upright

in the vase…

A poem begins to form somewhere inside me, but I can’t write it down. I have to vacuum the car. I want to drive Jane home after the ice dancing finals, and I can’t imagine taking her in it the way it is now. I run down six flights of stairs, start the engine, and head for the nearest gas station.

It can only open

once it softens

by then,

it’s already beginning to wilt…

The lines keep moving through me when a police officer pulls me over and asks if I know why. I can’t wear a seatbelt when I’m creating, I tell him, seriously. With no makeup, an old sweater, sweatpants. Fifteen hundred.

No way around it.

I pay, and pull away, but I can’t hold back the tears. I’ve been trying so hard, for so long, to drive the way I’m supposed to. And still, I can’t get it right.

Just like the poem.

I watch the rose disappear behind the rotating brushes of the car wash. When the blower clears the last glistening drops from the windshield, I drive out and realise I can’t vacuum after all. The machine only takes coins.

—

No poem can compete with the ice dancing that evening. At least not mine.

They move as one. A man, a woman, and everything between them – ancient as a whale. Their score is so high, five other pairs could fit between them and silver.

And still, eighteen pairs went out and skated before them, knowing.

—

When it’s over, Jane tells me she’ll take the subway.

I walk home. Heavy. To finish the poem.

Even if it won’t be the best.

No way around it.