Great advice that percolates within,
(like that instant coffee mug
resting on a coaster to my left)
as I muse in front of a manuscript
that I have just re-read and made
the sounds of ‘Oh, oh no, no’.

These pomes are all darlings,
no editor, no reworking, no
returning to make alterations,
(I can never be a poetry seamstress
because of my own imposed
sanctions)
but my prose, oh my prose.

My hands are on my forehead
as my mouth moves,
silently reading along
to the car crash of words that
I must have jammed onto these
pages thinking I was right.

I must exterminate my loved ones,
these paragraphs that have lain
undisturbed from my backspaces
and deletes for multiple months,
to get to the crux of what
I was saying.

Or maybe I let them be, maybe
a brand new empty document
is our destination, transferring
what works, (so little sadly,)
reincarnating that syntax
and grammar into striking
new statements!

Perhaps, let my darlings retire.