I have picked up all the papers now,
organized them again
according to their due dates,
pieced together some from wet bites
the baby has taken out of them,
the electric bill, the water bill;
I was on the telephone
for only a few minutes, taking down
messages from my voice mail,
one from a student in trouble
with the law, one from an aunt
who wonders why I don't call,
the baby taking things
from the drawer she could reach,
a soup ladle, a recipe book . . .
Today the world shrank
the millimeter to close index
finger and thumb to grasp
a corner of can't have it
after can't have it,
the mortgage, the insurance.
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