Surplus
Two winters back
I couldn’t climb the stair
without a stop on the landing
to bargain with the air.
(I won’t go into it.
It was long, and white, and beeped.
It took more than it could keep.)
This October there’s too much.
Too much breath, too much knee.
I walk to the market and back
and something’s left for free,
humming in me like the box
on the pole at the end of the block.
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So I’m learning what to do
with spare.
I carry Mrs. Okafor’s bags
up her stairs.
I hold the gate for the walker
with five dogs and a coffee
clenched in her teeth.
I take the long way home
just to spend it, just to see.
Nobody tells you this part:
the strength, when it comes back,
doesn’t come back as yours.
It comes back like rain
that fell on other roofs first,
ran down other gutters, eased
some other garden’s thirst,
and owes them for it.
May whoever is stopped tonight
on some landing, out of air,
make the last flight of the stair.
May someone be waiting there
with a little too much to spare.
