A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Clamoring buses seem to
brush beside me while I
stop for air;
a public reprieve.
On a moment’s pause, do you
all at once
feel as I do?
I’ve been working on my
gratitude, my liminal
discomforts,
aucune raison d’être dans cet état,
une mentalité
my vitamin intake,
my well learned mistakes,
the shortness of my
breathing.
It’s hard to breathe air in
when the air is unfamiliar
a stolen vernacular that does not
belong to me.
A compulsive need to check the mirror,
or check the time.
I am always where I am supposed to be but
I am not always convincing while my
laundry remains askew, unfolded;
unforgiven.
I count to three and I am there again,
engulfed in a sea of
knowing you.
I collect books I have yet to read because I am
committed to the idea of being better, but doesn’t a
woman like me
seem rather hard to keep?
The taste of bergamot and clenched teeth
remind you of your naked honesty
and you can’t help hating it, and
you do really hate me
don’t you?
I am the sour in your stomach after a swig
of bourbon,
the sweet of the liquor exists
outside of me,
my body –
a blurred control
flesh barriers and
sick inhibitions.
Lesser men than me have prayed
for a quicker poison and
a duller blade.
A good man is hard to find, and
I am the greatest man I know –
you won’t be able
to find me again
without catching a reflection,
your own,
on a whisper, on a feeling,
in a note, a chord, struck,
like the hands of a clock,
a clap, a reminder,
that you are here now.
You are here now.
Quarter to eleven in the evening.
It’s the break of morning light and
the sun is setting,
the shadows have grown taller in the
heat of the afternoon,
so what are you going to
do about it?
A Good Man is Hard to Find is available from The Blasted Tree Store
Featured by The Blasted Tree: November 13, 2018
Katerina Sevelka
Contributing Author
Other works on The Blasted Tree:
A Good Man is Hard to Find by Katerina Sevelka is a Blasted Tree original poem.
Edition of 60 scrolls published in Canada for Meet the Presses Indie Literary Market, 2018.
Cover Image by Kyle Flemmer