Jean McLeod

I SAID I'M BUSY

I worry about worrying.
I worry so much
I don't see
what goes on around me.

I worry that you
don't know I worry,
or you think I worry too much.

I worry because it keeps me
too busy to do anything else.

I AM doing something:
I'M WORRYING!
What else do you want from me?

I worry because it wards off
bad stuff that might attack
if I stop.

I worry until I cannot sleep,
until I'm in an eating frenzy.

I worry that I won't know how—
or, I'll know how,
but, won't be able to find the place
or that I'll find the place,
but I won't go in,
or I'll go in, but
I won't do it anyway.

DON'T BOTHER ME!
can't you see I'm busy
WORRYING!

* * *

QUICKSILVER*

Fold your mind around ideas
subdue them like a fish on a line;
bang thoughts
against those of
the man down the street,
a forum of friends,
a meeting of zealots.

Think in oblique ways
shake the cage of prejudice,
stand up for your opinions,
watch them fall

and learn
that the skin of belief
is so thin
a word
can pierce it.

*Published in Tiny Poems for Women Who Think They hate Poetry

Jean McLeod lives on the lip of the Chesapeake Bay, where she happily retired from social work several years ago and spends as much time as possible on the beach. She has multiple sclerosis, but pretends, as best she can, that she doesn't. Her poetry and prose have been published in Readers Digest, Family Circle Magazine, NO O Journal, Roux Magazine, Vox Poetica, Powhatan Review , and others. She was a Pushcart Prize nominee.