What Do You Do?

 



What Do You Do?


Well in the mornings I eat cereal

kids' cereal or my own

I sometimes crap afterwards

sometimes not

I tidy up the house

I nurse the younger child

I argue with the elder

I go to playgrounds

where the swings make odd shadows

I come home and make a dinner

I email friends

I write poems

I take photographs

I sometimes drink a glass of red wine

I often dream of flying

into snow banks

whatever that means

One dream I had was very strange

an albatross flies in and out

of an opening in the sky

an envelope, God's letter

a vagina made of paper


Lucy Simpson

Seattle

11/30/2008

Tags:
This also appears in:

Next Posts

Previous Posts

Comments

Noone
I like the way this poem veers off in another direction at the end and I like God's letter and a vagina made of paper. I wonder if you are too revelatory in the third line and I wonder if the title could be better.
Lucy
I agree about the title. I don't know about the crap. The "What do you do?" question has always irked me, though I am quick to ask and answer it. I feel akin to how I felt as a kid when a grown-up asked me how I liked school.
Aubrey

I like the way the final lines travel from reality to irony to paradox. Very graceful.

I was always willing to answer the 'What do you do' question - but I was never wholly convinced that the person asking the question was sufficiently interested in my answer. So I never said anything.

Lucy
Very wise. Then you get the people who will hold your ear in an iron grip for thirty minutes. Me, always hated the question. As a SAHM, who is also a writer, what do I say? It was more of a conundrum for me.

Post a comment

Already a Vox member? Sign in

You will be asked to join Vox to post this comment.