Coupled Socks
It is not the coupled socks that interest me
as I spread my darks across my unmade bed
but those newly found ones that arrive each week
without a partner. I have always taken it as proof
of the porous nature of our universe, a weekly lecture
on the impermanence of relationship, a poignant reminder
of personal taboo, and of how my own conventional nature
bars me from that place of making my own pairs.
Wearing one black with one brown or even one all white one
with my one sporty red-striped one would be a start.
(After a few washes I am never quite sure
which are dark blue and which are black anyway).
Still, as regularly as the evening news,
new unmatched “pairs” show up
on these love strewn sheets
where just hours ago we coupled.
I wonder why I continue to try
and mate them even in good light
even after that one wild night when defiantly
I wore a black with a blue and nothing bad happened.
