List Poem

Poem of the Month

List Poem

My mother was an oracle of lists,

careful scribe, each spell

of recall cast in ink and cursive.

In this way, nothing

was left behind, not

butter, not bras, not

apricots or gin. In this way, nothing

was left undone, neither beds

nor supper, bills nor braids.

She marked off the accounted for

with two stark, assertive lines.

My own lists unravel, tatters

of good intent forged

in invisible ink: Three Questions,

Four Agreements, Six

Habits, Seven Laws. To floss

each evening at sundown,

and never a carb after six.

To quiet the mind, to plant carrots,

to wash the sheets more often.

To banish judgment and meet

each morning with a corpulent heart.

The joy is never in the execution

but in the crossing off, the banishment

of each righteous act, the sweet relief of

two hard lines, muffling the burden.

—Kristen McHenry