TAX SEASON

I love paying taxes. I do.

They help me connect to you.

and you, and you, and you.

I pay my share and trust my taxes

will outlast the needs we share.

They show how much I care

about city, county, country.

Taxes build strong community.

The shining necklace 

that connects us

is only so strong 

as its strongest link.

so, I do not shrink

from my duty to pay my taxes.

They are never late.

It is the forms I hate,

pages of numbers

that destroy my slumber.

Is it too early to rise?

Can the day not wait

until my words can untangle,

by numbers strangled,

inside my dreams

where truths scream

to be lightly told 

as dawn unfolds?

My dreams try to pass on

objects long gone

from emptied drawers:

wooden spaghetti fork,

aluminum sieve,

cotton cheesecloth.

All items one needs

to stir the pot as tangled food heats;

as tangled words strive to unfold

the stories hidden and untold.

And tools one needs to sift through

lies and deceits to give you truth.

Reading tax instructions in my sleep

makes me weep

at the destruction of poetry.

There is no tax symmetry.

Words flee the grasp of Publication 17.

Line by line of form 1040

blocks all ability and creativity,

destroying poems before they are born.

Tax season is the theft; not of cash,

but of dreams. Words are torn.

Tax season is a thief in the night

Tax season continues to steal even in daylight.