← Poetry

The Columnist

Nancy lives her world in columns… Neat.. precise…double, triple, quadruple-checked entries, categories, subdivided, quantified, pro-rated, then checked just one more time. Improvisation is not her game. “Approximate” missing from her vocabulary. Tax time turning her dining area into a replica of the Twin Towers post 9/11 Accounting Rule #349: Do not get out of your column.. focus on that line entry only.. do not veer off into neighboring lines… focus, focus, focus… Patton had the same strategy.. Do not attack on all fronts at once… Zero in, put all your resources into a single campaign…focus.

Birthdays are celebrated full-tilt, all-out, full-bore…blitzkrieg Christmas is attacked with all the armies narrowed in on a single target Anniversaries, wedding showers, nuptials… All with a single-minded precision that would make Scud missiles look like blow darts.

I sit there eating my perfectly-made trifle beside the tastefully decorated tree in the middle of a room whose decorations have been planned since September…Me, who had trouble staying inside the lines while coloring Mrs. Walker’s first grade letter chart… And they call me the columnist.