Patience

by Tzivia Gover


Let’s get this over with. It’s a joke between us.
Even when reading a book we love so much
we refer to characters as if they’re our oldest friends,
and we’ll miss when it ends, and repeat their lines in bed—

Still, we calculate, flipping pages by twos or tens
how much more there is to go until the end.
Or a TV series, 22 episodes, 7 seasons.
Love it so much we binge watch when we should be sleeping

Even copy favorite lines on sheets of looseleaf and stow
them with the pencil in the drawer with the remotes.
We count our laps and log our times. We mount the scale, rue what’s accruing.
Gather up our gains. Inventory what we need to shed. What we’re losing.

Let’s just get this over with. It’s our wink
to our impatience: with commercial breaks
and intermissions. We revere the VCR’s glowing time stamp,
tap the phone to check the clock, and ask

When will this be done? When will we be home? How much longer?
Couldn’t it be shorter? Faster? Let’s get it over with. Our joke’s the answer.
Our wave to the sweeping secondhand as eternity keeps lasting.
It’s ticking while we’re waiting, dreading the inevitable—and craving.


* * * * *

Tzivia Gover is a dreamwork professional, poet, and author. Her most recent book, Dreaming on the Page: Tap into Your Midnight Mind to Supercharge Your Writing, combines writing and dreamwork. She has been published in dozens of journals and anthologies including The Mom Egg Review, The Naugatuck River Review, and Lilith Magazine. She teaches, writes, and dreams in western Massachusetts. Learn more at www.thirdhousemoon.com