Dawn Potter: Average Land

Even a person like you,

paddling away in your outrigger canoe,

counting strokes and plotting interviews with fans

(or, contrariwise, splitting your proud bow

on a sharp rock and girding yourself for death)—

yes, even you might wake up one gloaming

to find yourself stranded on a fat-faced isle—

green-haired, peaceable, round as a penny.

You begin your stay by lying nose down in the sand,

maybe for hours, concussed by zeal,

pestered by tame robins.

It takes that long to admit you’ve been caught.

Call it a failure of imagination, but you never believed

that a person like you could find herself demoted

to the safe-and-sound.

You were bound for glory, born to gun.

You waned with wrecks and waxed with thorns.

Now here you lie, with the modest waves dribbling at your feet.

On the hillside a lamb obediently crops the grass.

Copyright 2018 Dawn Potter