Marian Shapiro

We have fun with the sun we make it run
slower/faster when we want it to, just call it
a poem we can get rid of all the punctuation
or at least as much as we please, why not do
the same with time, zap as many hours
as we like, or conversely tack some on here
or there it’s whatever time we say it is (as
long as all of us agree, otherwise it would
be awfully inconvenient we could make
appointments that took place before we
got there or after we got there, and does
it really matter? probably not) we could
plan meetings that never meet (and who
would miss them?) we could eat when we
feel hungry and never be late for dinner,
come to think of it there would be no late to be!
nothing would be awry at all, Old Reliable
would go right on rising and setting in our daily
pilgrimage, persisting without caring a single
whit.

Marian Kaplun Shapiro is the author of a professional book, Second Childhood (Norton, 1988), a poetry book, Players In The Dream, Dreamers In The Play (Plain View Press, 2007) and two chapbooks: Your Third Wish, (Finishing Line, 2007); and The End Of The World, Announced On Wednesday (Pudding House, 2007). As a Quaker and a psychologist, her poetry often addresses the embedded topics of peace and violence, often by addressing one within the context of the other. A resident of Lexington, she was five times named Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts.