Luck: Poems
by Marc Elihu Hofstadter
NOT YOURS
Some days nothing is yours.
Not the bed you sleep in,
your favorite Paisley shirt,
or even the sky,
speckled with cold white.
Your partner’s tone carefully reminds you
he’s his own man,
and your friends maintain
an adult distance.
You’re not even master of yourself:
your moods run off in zigzag rivulets,
like spilled milk.
Nothing to do but wait it out,
try to sit emptied of thought
until the world in its own sweet time
floods back—
for your life wasn’t given to you,
only lent,
and one day you’re going to have to give it back.