Poem (Waiting on the Roofer to Get Here)

It’s roofers all down the block, but not at my house, 
with the leaky garage roof, and probably leaky other places 
we just haven’t discovered yet. Our roofer is on the way. 
And I’m waiting. I’ve been waiting so long birds 
are landing on me. One’s making a nest in my hair. 
And all of it translates into the same message, rubbing 
at the edges with a damp cloth, that the search is never ending, 
in the absence of evidence, or that everything is evidence, 
or both, as successive approximations of the future 
as belated warnings in the form of celebrations and Friday lights. 
In the meanwhile, we settle for home repairs, covered 
by insurance, like a patient mother coming to the room 
of the crying child. It’s OK. It will all be OK. And we 
become calm. We look up and down the block, hopefully.
Later, at work, we’ll begin moving books back into our newly 
carpeted and painted office, like a Max Leiva sculpture 
mixed with Wes Anderson, which I wouldn’t mind seeing, 
so now I’m kind of looking forward to it, until the couple hours 
of boxes will undoubtedly convince me to go back to my retirement 
planning, 
which currently stands at ten years, at which time I’ll get to Venice 
or maybe write a sonnet, but not both. One has to moderate 
one’s dreams. Otherwise I’d be running up and down the halls 
singing “Oort cloud! Oort cloud!” to the modular couches 
I rearranged yesterday, figuring what’s outside my office 
is my jurisdiction, and anyway it’s a better approach now to my 
office, which I like to keep open because a closed door 
isn’t very interesting. Maybe a puzzle or something. But I’d rather 
a glimpse, something anyway that says I’m not so utterly alone.