The Conspiracy of Chores
Hilary King
The dishes can wait but will you let them?
While you are unrolling your hopes
on a yoga mat in the living room
or curling up on the window seat
with a cup of tea and specially purchased pen,
the dishes are conspiring with the laundry.
The windows have reached an agreement with the floors,
today’s to-do list and calendar chuckling over their joke.
Never will you enter a room without seeing its corners.
Always will you give in to the mean desire of completion.
Dreams don’t call out as loudly as the chaos
made by the hour hand smashing through the minutes.
Dreams require their own alarm to shriek and ring, to send
the dishes slipping further into the sink,
out of sight, out of mind,
so you may surrender to your weapons.
More yoga, more tea on the window seat,
cushioned, with a view,
the one you practically bought the house for.
Go, now. Set the alarm.
Listen to Hilary read the poem here:
The dishes can wait but will you let them?
While you are unrolling your hopes
on a yoga mat in the living room
or curling up on the window seat
with a cup of tea and specially purchased pen,
the dishes are conspiring with the laundry.
The windows have reached an agreement with the floors,
today’s to-do list and calendar chuckling over their joke.
Never will you enter a room without seeing its corners.
Always will you give in to the mean desire of completion.
Dreams don’t call out as loudly as the chaos
made by the hour hand smashing through the minutes.
Dreams require their own alarm to shriek and ring, to send
the dishes slipping further into the sink,
out of sight, out of mind,
so you may surrender to your weapons.
More yoga, more tea on the window seat,
cushioned, with a view,
the one you practically bought the house for.
Go, now. Set the alarm.
Listen to Hilary read the poem here:
About the author
Hilary King lives and writes in Atlanta, Georgia. Her poems have been published in PANK, Gertrude, Blue Fifth Review, Vinyl Poetry, and other publications. She is learning to let the dishes sit.