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This time tomorrow
this time tomorrow where do you think you will be in a car, a room
on a road, a floor of a building with perhaps many floors, rooms, doors
or lying on grass playing with your retriever looking for autumn
falling dogwood leaves bees complaining for flowers or by a window
awaiting cloudburst light hardening, darkening or fixing coffee
I’ve just won a prize the E-Super-G Award E stands for Ego
Super for Super G for Gratification it’s almost enough
some of you may now finally and at long last feel belief in me
of course the money will send my kids to college which makes them happy
raccoon coats and such rah rah siss boom bah Go Team which is romantic
I mean they think so which increases my stature as a lucky dog
I’m the first winner it’s not like Nobel-stuffy it’s so very nice
I do have duties I’ve only started to hear I have to do stuff
remove shrubbery take out tree stumps and plant new remove old driveway
remove old sidewalk have to rent a jackhammer replace old lamppost
make forms pour concrete trim slate and lay it in place got to wear those gloves
but not tomorrow you can put this hard stuff off you know how you can
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David McAleavey has published seven books, most recently Huge Haiku (Chax Press, 2005), Rock Taught (Broadkill River Press, 2016), and Talk Music (Flying Islands Press, 2018), as well as one chapbook, David McAleavey’s Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2001), and has edited two collections of writing from and about Washington area writers. He taught literature and creative writing at George Washington University from 1974 to 2020. He has lived in Arlington, Virginia, since 1976.
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