calamity has already been and gone, its arrows still clean

I do not wake up buzzing with happiness. 

In fact my bed is full of wasps. I have been stung 

 

everywhere tender. I have not had fun 

in a long time, maybe in ever. 

 

My blessings do not run over and also 

I have none. My sink is leaking. 

 

My sink is running over with wasps. 

They have carried off all my sugar. 

 

See how poor I am, how luckless, how unshapely 

my head from which no hair falls in waves. 

 

I have no children to speak of, 

no robes sewn with threads of gold, 

 

no robes. I am a patch of dirt, a glass 

of vinegar, a bony goose among fat others. 

 

I am an unworthy enemy, small and mean. 

In fact calamity has already been and gone, 

 

its arrows still clean. I do not need to play dead. 

Not even death would want to play with me. 

 

 [Claire Wahmanholm, ‘If Anyone Asks’, from Meltwater: Poems]