You Figure It Out                                               


            I personally have always had trouble with the phrase
 
            Because it made me think of some thing
            And I could never figure out exactly what:
 
            Was it a hunk of dough to be kneaded and baked
            Just right, or else?
 
            A widget that could roll off an assembly line
            Like so, and that was that?
 
            It definitely couldn’t be bottled –
            That I was sure of –
            Or sold to anyone else
            Because its shelf-life was way too short
 
            You might argue that it was a piece of performance art
            To be devised together, a collaboration, sort of,
            That didn’t happen very often between two real artists,
            Each with strong minds and even stronger ideas
            About what kind of house of card tricks fit the bill
 
            Whatever it was I did get the impression
            That it could easily grow stale, become mechanical
            Or lose its mystery
            And on top of all that
            Unless it kept happening with a certain frequency
            (On which nobody could ever quite agree
            And, believe me, I’ve asked around)
            The chances of its happening again
            Shrank to nil
 
            You can see why
            When it came to pondering ingredients
            I was at a loss
 
            Until one lazy afternoon
            She took me unawares
            And –
 
            (and here I was just about to say
            that one thing led to another
            but it’s not true!) –
 
            Our thousand playful conjurings,
            Reckless as the dew,
            Grew immaterial


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            Emanuel E. García, Leaf Thoughts, One Hundred Poems2013