Quill & Parchment: Lunch Box Poet

Lunch Box Poet
by Ed Bennett

My wife married a poet,
so he told her –
the other me
who knits his brow
over imperfect images;
a romantic of disjointed similes
who compares her
to nature’s perfect creation
in those hours spent
with moon glow and pencil,
emotions fashioned outward,
a balloon man conjuring
exotic fauna from words.

The other me,
not the one at the counter
making lunch from leftovers
on the way to the job
sprawled from Monday to Friday.
She married a poet yet
kisses my cheek on the way
to the car for the morning commute.

Give me
a quiet time to write
about her smile beyond description,
a touch from skin to soul –
intimate, surreal, entire,
the obverse of my desk time,
my phone voice,
my argued politeness.

Until then
I will search out time
between the obligations,
examine each word
like a polished stone
in a magpie’s nest.

I am complete
with my audience of one,
a sometime Muse
for a lunch box poet
distracted for a time
by days on a treadmill

living for moonlight and imagery,
the purr of contentment,
the song of our lives.

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