Mental Accounting

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                                                       – after Cathy Song    

                                                                                                      First published by The Tokyo Poetry Journal

Catalog of wounds

encrusted with crystal

why cling 

to what shatters and cuts us?

Catalog of mirrors 

fixed on roads untrodden, 

why not focus

on courses we follow?

Catalog of blunders 

and botched checkmates,

why keep score

after games end?

Catalog of loads 

borne by proxy,

why carry 

burdens that crush us?

Catalog of rogue waves 

that could befall us, 

why not paddle 

the pond that is before us?

Catalog of shadows 

cast on narrow walls,

why not see 

light flows through fissures?