25 Words Or Less

25 Words or Less

It was a Monday when I saw it
the competition said
what would you do if you, for a day, were Prime Minister?
in 25 words or less

I don't remember the prize exactly
but I remember thinking
I could win this
could I win this?
I could win this, yes!

It was Monday and
I had to get to work
and I couldn't find a pen
so I tore out the page of the magazine
and stuffed it into my hip pocket

I was trying to think of these 25 words on the 58 bus at 8:15.
It was 15 late and now I would miss the 8:30 train
and because of this
I remembered that I hadn't paid
the gas bill and it was 60 days
and my house mate had given me 70 dollars
which was more than his share
but I'd already spent it
on fuel for the car
and jars of pasta sauce
and some things from the chemist
and this magazine of course

And then it occurred that the rego was due
and why did I even buy that car
I never use it
and how yes it was great when she and I
would drive and drive for days
to nowhere and for nothing but to lie
under that black black sky
and feel for sure that there is no spirit without the body
for how could the spirit survive with no body to receive it?

And how I still feel that when she was ill
I was cruel, I was scared
I was cruel
I walked the kids the long way to school
for the extra minutes of babble and distraction
and I wandered, meandered
among supermarket shelves, alone
listless and swathed in that knowable knell
of air conditioned music

And how in those years
I unlearned words
and learned more of the spaces between them
the way you over-trace squares
with a ballpoint pen
in Sunday's crossword
by hospital bed, on the waiting list, 32 down

It was Monday at 4
and I still hadn't thought
of my 25 words

What made it so hard
was intrusion of calls and the printers offline
and knowing the board needed their papers by 5
with their order of quail and winery wine
and everyone knew it was that point in the graph on the PowerPoint slide
where people would have to be fired
and everyone knew how Sue got sacked
in curt officialese by efficient SMS:
that’s 160 characters or less

And that made 25 words
seem like re-writing the Constitution

And I burnt the pasta again because I forgot the oven;
on TV police were looking for a gunman
and those streets looked a lot like mine from the air
those tiny little places with the lights on
maybe everyone down there was scribbling
into that same competition corner square
their hearts thumping with every sudden sound in the garden

I don’t remember the prize exactly
but I remember thinking I can win this
I can be the best
one rousing call to action
a simple stately sentence
you can fit into one breath

“do something, anything”
is all that I said

well, they say less is more
and if I were PM
that might just be enough
more or less.

This poem appears in

Pass it Along