by Claire Scott

My commute was thirty minutes shorter
my body twenty pounds lighter
my income ten times greater
my son fifty miles closer, etc. etc.
aaaaaaaafocusing, focusing on
an ever expanding list of frustrations
cumulative and inconsequential
aaaaaaaain the grand scheme
insidious like a frog swimming
in a pot of cold water
heating slowly
aaaaaaaaright now

Trying to jump over myself to some
better future, as though I could get
aaaaaaaathere without being here
as though the future was
some geographic location
with better weather, little rain,
aaaaaaaano in-laws or indigestion
no commute over five minutes
twenty pounds magically melted
aaaaaaaasimply by wishing

If only

Six letters in a pellet of poison
draining life from life
the water almost boiling
aaaaaaaaright now


Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has published in a number of literary magazines. She was recently nominated for the 2014 Pushcart Prize. Claire is a winner of the Arizona State Poetry Society 2013 Annual Poetry Contest. She has published in Trivia, Write Wing, Stepping Stones, Epiphany, Organs of Vision and Speech, Red Savina Review, Writers Tribe Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Common Threads, Poydras Review, First Day and Sanskrit among others. Her forthcoming first collection of poems, Waiting to be Called, will be published by IF SF Press in the fall of 2014. Claire is a Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in Berkeley, CA.