STEPHEN GRANT

SMALL LIFE

I lead a small life. Not any small life. Just mine.
At least the one I imagine I lead. Where I play springs
with my cat. And stream old episodes of Seinfeld
and Judge Judy. And dream about you—twisting
our pillowcase and bedcovers into a ball, clad in pajama
bottoms and a T-shirt. Or in nothing at all. And watch
a wayward ant carry a breadcrumb or sesame seed—
as I’m doing now, seeking le mot juste.

Treading lightly, I leave little carbon in my wake
but wonder what’s the point, apart from filling
an existential void, a Sisyphean undertaking. Or
keeping my phone charged so I can check for messages
I don’t receive, let alone read or return. Or hearing
from friends who want to intrude on my antisocial
state of being. Or fussing over my chronic hangnail,
the one I can’t seem to trim, too close to the cuticle.

Or forgoing my one-time enthusiasms, ultimately
succumbing to indifference or lethargy, pick your poison.
First-person problems, I know. Ego problems, for sure.
Still, it’s a life I can recount in verse or demonstrate
by graphic jazz hands, although I’d rather trumpet these
feelings, like cracking a tree branch, than yawn my way,
fugue-like, through the ether. It’s a small life

but at least it’s mine.