How things fall between the gaps by Emma Lee

Deliberately: the gap I made between her desk and mine

so her clumsiness wouldn’t sprawl over my work.

The crowded, unnumbered list tipped upside down

by a car’s exhaust problem and moved appointment.

In the diary with pencilled entries, the cluttered inbox,

the sticky note that failed to stick, the wheel that didn’t squeak,

that project that kept getting postponed, that poem which needed

more research that revealed even more research was needed.

The song that always seems to get passed over in shuffle mode.

When a busy person is asked to do one more thing and there’s always one more thing.

When it takes four hours to compose a text

because it has to be unmisinterpretable.

---

Emma Lee’s publications include “The Significance of a Dress” (Arachne, 2020) and "Ghosts in the Desert" (IDP, 2015). She co-edited “Over Land, Over Sea,” (Five Leaves, UK, 2015), is Poetry Reviews Editor for The Blue Nib, reviews for magazines and blogs at http://emmalee1.wordpress.com.

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