Here’s my rough draft for today, Sunday 01.23.22.
Very Superstitious?
I toss the salt over my shoulder, but I never can remember
if it’s supposed to be one or the other, so I always
throw it over both to cover my ass.
It’s a toss-up yet, to see whether I’ve lived a charmed life.
An uncharmed life feels weightier in my overall balance,
but I’m withholding a decision until it’s over.
Then I’ll let you know how it came out in the end.
Oh, I don’t believe in seances, so maybe I won’t be able to do so,
although I do believe in ghosts, so maybe you might actually hear from me.
I’d say I’d leave it to my biographer to make the call,
but you’d laugh too much, and this is a serious matter.
If I were Samuel Johnson or Beowulf, no problem,
but you’d have to be a lot luckier than I to have a life ending up
sitting on a bookshelf with the likes of those two very lucky people.
I think I’ve had good luck a few times, but I’ve been unlucky at least as many.
Is saying I’ve been unlucky a cop-out?
It really is easy to attribute failure to forces outside your control.
I broke that mirror, or it’s Friday the 13th.
As with the spilled salt, I know I think too much
about walking around ladders rather than under them.
And I always say a penny I pick up on the street will bring me luck all day long,
reciting that enchanting rhyme automatically as I bend over,
as natural as breathing, as real as if it were true.
Lanning Lee 