Now, not remembering the impulse
I give my desk the floor:
"I am a roll top oak desk.
I can keep a confidence.
You can put your feet on me, lean an elbow,
you can write a poem on me.
I can do what a bookcase or table can’t do.
I have drawers, nooks, niches.
Why do you write in an easy chair
with a notebook in your lap?
Some write at a stand up desk.
Not to write on me when I’m here
with my legs wide open is frankly
a sign of disrespect.
I’m for books, spilling ink, poetry.
Don’t sell me to an accountant,
or someone who will try to have me
only to give him or her authority.
I don’t want a mirror over me,
I don’t want to be called by mistake a “vanity.”
Leave me to an orphanage,
to kids who never had a desk,
or sooner or later, being 19th Century American,
I’ll end up auctioned.
I’m told Japanese furniture revolted,
the emperor sleeps on the floor."