One Day
I’ll take those piano lessons, let my fingers
meet the keys magnetically as if finding
a long-lost brother, and one day, I swear
I’ll open that 401k and bury the remnants
of my Millennial cynicism, maybe even
adopt a growth mindset, who knows, and
one day, I’ll finish this book and that film
so you can finally know how I feel about
them because one day, I know, one of us
won’t be here, and if it’s me, then I hope
that day falls during autumn, and one day,
I’ll write a poem about how each falling
leaf is paired with someone’s final breath,
but I won’t make it derivative, you know,
one day, I’ll travel to the Arctic and Africa
in that order because the former is melting,
an exigent crisis that’ll one day be solved
or won’t, but either way, I’ve got a dozen
crossword puzzles to finish first, penciling
in terms like isthmus and guib and leaving
the book open on my table as if by accident
for guests to see and admire because that’s
what we do, right, except one day, I won’t
care enough to do that because on that day,
nothing else will matter to me but Chopin,
Argerich, Brother Ray, and countless others
who suture our relentlessly grieving world
by sitting at their pianos and giving us the
sweetest music that I never bothered to learn
but wish like hell I had every single day.
Andrew Alexander Mobbs (he/him/his) is the author of the chapbook Strangers and Pilgrims (Six Gallery Press, 2013). A Pushcart Prize nominee, his work has appeared/is forthcoming in New Delta Review, Frontier Poetry, Appalachian Heritage, and elsewhere. He also co-edits the online literary magazine Nude Bruce Review.
Thin Air Magazine 