Photo by Carolyn Baskis
No Use Crying
I don’t know who decided that idiom.
You wanna cry, cry.
What, are we all so wealthy
that we can afford to pour milk
over granite tabletops and not think
about the cost of such behaviors?
Do we own and operate dairy farms?
No, we don’t – not most of us. Sucks.
So go ahead, let fall your tears
(or an apropos typo: let fall your fears)
and cry, weep, howl, shriek, rage
until you are at last sponge-ready
and eager to clean and begin anew.
But you know what else you could do?
Go get some juice. Spill that, too,
in arcing droplets that ape the sun.
Add an asparagus spear, a broccoli floret,
a Brussels sprout; arrange accordingly.
Look at this interesting composition you made!
All textured and nuanced – and to think
that it started from a mild milk tragedy.
And here you assumed that the spill was a mistake.
Honey, there are no mistakes.
__________________________________________
Josh Lefkowitz is a graduate from the University of Michigan, where he received the Hopwood Award for Poetry. His poems and essays have been published in Court Green (forthcoming), Conduit, The Rumpus, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, Freerange Nonfiction, Ohio Edit, and Open Letters Monthly, among others. He has performed two autobiographical solo pieces—HELP WANTED: A Personal Search for Meaningful Employment at the Start of the 21st Century and NOW WHAT?—in theaters and spaces across the country. Additionally, Josh has recorded humorous essays for NPR’s All Things Considered and for BBC’s Americana. He received a Young Artist grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and an Associate Artist appointment from the Atlantic Center for the Arts. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, and most recently was the 2013 winner of the Wergle Flomp humor poetry contest, sponsored by Winning Writers.
Love it! great voice, great words.
What is the cost of spilled milk? Metaphorical and literal
milk spills every day; whether in a kitchen, a restaurant, or—in a different way—in the street listening to a baby cry (as written by Moya Cannon in her poem,“Milk”). But, we can get some juice or vegetables and transform it all into something new and unique. What began as a “mild milk tragedy” can become something cathartic. We can cry or get the sponge and clean it up. No crying over spilled milk? Agreed.