The only task

The dingo air is all around me. I'm not sure whether I should do laundry first or simply sit and write. I choose writing or writing chooses me. The sun hits me warm on my back as I face the empty space. I'm still thinking of the laundry to put away that is scrunched like rolled up balls of parchment in my clothes hamper and the defrosting ground pork in the microwave that is to be made into spaghetti sauce and the still swooshing clothes in the washer that need tending and the younger boy wiping his wet eyes at his glued in stance at his working place and the older boy belligerent and unwilling but forced off the YouTube sector and into the working on his homework area. I'm distracted. I want to be multiplied, cloned and made into multiple mothers and then each mother could single task each job that needs doing while the original mom could write.

But it can't be. I leave my laundry in the container. I let my coffee cool again next the laundry for the second time today. I let hubby handle the younger boy's struggles with math. I ignore the posturing of the older boy who hates me and is now watching his rebellion in the mirror as he puttys up his skin. I hear the microwave chiming that it is done the defrosting and I struggle not to get up and make the sauce. I have to stay here, distracted and wild. My hair is uncombed. My loose gray top is like a banana skin unpeeled around my sagging frame. My jeans hug too tightly. I think I am going to have my period soon. The walk is not yet even prepared for. I've only done one poem but it made me insensate to any other task but this. Write.Write and the day will unfold like the simple unfolding of a flower from the tight, unyielding bud. Write and you can take first one calming breath and then the next one. Write and you can turn your face to the sun and not just feel it massage your back. Write and it doesn't matter if none of the other tasks of life get done. Writing is the one task that must get done. First.