what you’re doing when you

what you’re doing when you

can’t be writing a poem

is what poetry paradoxically

tries to capture

like the other night

when I took my youngest kid

to see “dungeons & dragons” —

the second time for me —

and on the way over

I envisioned zoning out

the movie and everything else

and composing a short poem

in my mind

to be memorized in the dark

line by line

but I got absorbed

in the story on the screen

even though I knew it

beat by beat

and then suddenly

that time to be alone

with my thoughts was done

but I win —

the self-praise and accolades —

because it would have been

a poem like this about how

we manage the impossible

every day anyways

whether we document it

with art or not