Teresa Driver
Tucson, AZ

Teresa Dawn Driver is wife of Jaison, mother of Ryan (7) and Kira (2), Secretary-Treasurer of IATSE Local 415 (stagehand's union), Executive Director of Tucson Poetry Festival, a sometime activist, yoga practicioner, and willing to stand on a soapbox to preach on behalf of feminist goddesses any time, any place.

Feng Shui Can't Save Me From My Mortgage

I got stuff,
So much stuff
So many things.
I attach strings,
Tie them into knots,
And pick them apart
The trick is:
Pull tight,
Then cry.

I got this cat’s cradle
Cobwebbing my eye:
Kaleidoscope of tulips
In a blue vase
Meaning golf course.
Questions of class
I shouldn’t even ask
Cause it’s a pretty flower.

I got a rocking chair
Not enough padding
Doesn’t support my head.
Three sizes too short
One too narrow --
But it was free.
Free?
I’ll take three.

I got a fortune the other day
Said, “Everything is coming your way.”
It’s an avalanche.
I filled a roll away in four days.
I need another.

Too many books,
Too many pens,
Too many papers,
Too many potted plants,
I can’t water them all,
I don’t have a money tree
In my prosperity corner,
Too many dishes, dogs, diapers,
Costumes, cats, cleaning products,
Too many cheese graters.

How can one have too many cheese graters?

One for parmesan
One for ginger
Two for nachos
One for potatoes
One for the emergency kit
(Can you imagine an emergency
Without cheese?)

I have six, count them,
Six cheese graters.
I buy packets
Of cheese sliced neat
With little papers inbetween
‘Cause I might not have time
To use a knife on my sandwich
‘Cause I gotta work
So hard and long
To make the money
To support my grater collecting.

It’s wrong,
Just wrong, like so much else:
Living in fear
Of not enough
We name greed necessity
Or pragmatism
Or insurance
When the rose is compulsion.

So, if it will take 30 years
To pay off the debt
Accumulated in the present
Staving off fears from the past
Am I really here now?

And what I really want to know
Is if time collapses with the savings and loans The way probability arcs into certainty When I use a tablespoon?

I’ve got several.

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