I expect the worst
always
even as a kid I expected birthday
presents I didn’t want, like another
loser Chutes and Ladders game
I expected a D on my spelling test
even though I was the best speller in the class
and today for sure my car will need new brakes
new struts, new tires, not just a tune up
for sure the grocery store will be
out of Meyer lemons and heavy cream
and my dessert will be a disaster
and the doctor will find
warts or high blood pressure or lung cancer
for sure the maple tree will fall on the house
in tonight’s high winds
and I will have to move to a hotel
I can’t possibly afford
and end up panhandling by Route 580
holding a cardboard sign in the pouring rain
as cars roar past
and drivers pretend not to see
but most of all I am worried my heart
is too stressed from all this worrying
and will pack up veins and arteries
and move to Wyoming
Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review and Healing Muse, among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.
