Before the Market Opens

Shadow sleeps on the corner of my desk,
beside the window,
her big tabby head resting against the glass,
her face twitching,
dreaming of squirrels and sparrows
and the fat robins
she’d like to sink her teeth into.
She has no idea the market opens soon,
not a clue my coffee is cooling,
that anxiety is swimming through my veins,
my mind drifting back,
floating with the seagulls
gliding across the lake,
while I sit here watching
numbers before they even exist.

I watch her breathe,
her stomach rising and falling,
a little quicker than usual,
her tail flicking lightly,
ears twitching
at some invisible movement
behind her closed eyes.

My desk is cluttered with evidence.
A notebook for golf,
another for stocks,
another for the daily promises
I make to myself.
Poems,
promotional videos,
the endless work
of becoming someone
I strive to be.
My hat sits there,
Clear Lake, established 1871,
like it’s waiting for my head.
My keys wait
for a long drive.
My phone pings
with the new market additions.
A yellow highlighter rests
beside the pages,
ready to underline
something important.
My water bottle,
my nicotine,
my lozenges.
Proof that some battles
leave footprints
even after you win.
The cigarettes are gone.
The war just changed uniforms.

My old maple desk holds everything,
like it has been holding generations
of anxious people before me.
A principal,
a writer,
a kid trying to do homework,
trying to make sense of all the noise.

Above it, Van Gogh watches me
with those intense eyes,
the world spinning
behind his painted head.

Hemingway reminds me
about beauty,
risk,
truth,
sacrifice.
The words are beautiful.
The warnings,
sometimes heeded too late.

Mark Twain tells me
the secret to getting ahead
is getting started.

I look at the shark teeth
and puka shell necklaces
hanging from hooks on my wall,
little pieces of ocean
I turned into something beautiful.
Proof that some things are found
after surviving the waves
and the riptides.

And Shadow sleeps,
the only creature in this room
who understands exactly what to do.
Rest,
wait,
dream.

She opens her eyes.
The market moves.
My coffee’s cold.
And the world keeps going.