Backwards
I wrote this poem for fun one day, imagining how it would be to live a day backwards from dusk to dawn. Backwards What if instead of rising morn we peel the day backwards from dusk to dawn yawning to wakefulness finish the day before it’s begun Our stomachs full, without a bite of food the empty plate before us dessert before potatoes tasks done before we ever start hair combed as though there’d been no tangles clothing wrinkled after the iron What if we started the day at dusk peeled it backwards then tomorrow might be a fine day © Carolyn Wilker Published by Tower Poetry Society Summer 2017, Volume 66, No. 1