Lest She Leave

I’m having a difficult time lately, dealing with the sirens
of life’s details (around me)
 
managing the stacks, stickie notes, lists, things-to-do,
bills, payments-due-by, office correspondence, 

unfinished projects on the “art”
table pushed unceremoniously 

toward the back corner by a recent occupation of
holiday mail-order catalogues 

like glossy prefabricated subdivisions. I’m
organizationally challenged right now, see?

Because, what really
needs my attention is the muse
who scatters the papers
impatiently
and with demanding
petulance (and who I really am quite fond of, though
haven’t admitted yet to her)
stands between me
and the details.

She is achingly
beautiful
and hard to ignore

She follows me to the mailbox,

to the hardware store, to the office; 

brushes up against me at the coffeehouse,
talking on the phone, eating, bathing, sitting with
my children, embracing my lover.

Sometimes
teasing, she will throw a handful of precious ideas
into the air
(just to hear me gasp)
and watch me scramble comically
trying to catch them before they hit the ground
and burst.

She slips into bed
with me at dawn and asks with a sigh of sweetness, 

“Why must you sleep?

Get up, I want to be together.”

And (lest she leave)
I roll over and embrace her.

Lest She Leave © 2007 Martha Lee Phelps