Ruminant Cynosure

Honey, I'm in the middle
of something. You trouble me
for eschewing the thimble
as I thread a button
on a thrift store-bought jacket,
trouble me because the jacket's not worth it.
I assure you, because it came
with the replacement sewn
on the breast pocket tag,
God must want me to fix it.
You scoff at any notion of God,
but I admonish you that I found Him,
on shelves lined with half-burned
candles faced with nuestra señora,
in a tiny plastic dashboard Jesus.
How else could I find peace
with our tacky golden Buddha?
なもきえほう is hardly enough.
God is everywhere -- even where he's not.
I do without the thimble
because I cannot do without
the several pinprick agonies its absence affords,
or the satisfaction of a job half-assedly done.
Black thread, tortoiseshell button,
fine, black and white herringbone cotton,
H&M by way of Goodwill.
Comfort in the void --
the thrill of the inability to know
whether the snooty coat-check boy
will see the hairy helter-skelter,
the black widow leg tangle
in my repair. Beware
the knots -- I am Gordian
and cannot be untied.
What a maddening world this must be
for the righteous and bloodthirsty:
no one a pure victim,
none purely perpetrator.
It's enough to make my judges
kill the jury and prosecution's
witnesses before turning their blades
on themselves. They never get around to me.
Dogs stop in their tracks
and greet me as an old friend,
tongue on the nose
and gleaming eyes.
A million minds trail down the sidewalk
in my wake, burbling like a stream
iridescent as a grease-slick
in the rain; they trail
in a geometric progression:
first two, then four, then eight,
a coruscant wedding train.
I shall descend now the staricase,
bovine, dull, wet and heavy
In this span, the bread has done baking.
A piece of tobacco alights on my palm
and crawls. I blow it off,
lest I interrupt the life
of a midge blessed with so little to begin with.
I have found tenacity
in the letting-go bag,
burlap and frayed, it sags with jargon:
"Green thumbs lack white knuckles."
Enduring as lead, porous as a volcanic island,
I am eternal, as solid
and unprepossessing as Everest, yet I've
outpaced you. And you cannot fathom
why I refuse to don a thimble.
I cannot reflect you right now, my darling:
I am and always will be
in the middle of something.