On Balance
A deeply
flawed person
you flail
fail
and fall
but stay
more or less
happy
to be
a person
at all
LATE
“Are you able to turn off thinking about work
in order to get an adequate amount of sleep?”
— Psychology Today
It’s true I’m tired.
What else to say?
And uninspired,
it’s true: I’m tired.
And yet required
you, triolet.
It’s true I’m tired.
What else to say?
“Late” first appeared in The Bluestone Review.
Robert West’s chapbook Convalescent was published by Finishing Line Press in 2011. He’s co-editor of Succinct: The Broadstone Anthology of Short Poems (Broadstone Books, 2013) and editor of The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons, forthcoming in two volumes from W. W. Norton this fall. He teaches at Mississippi State University.
Learn more about Robert West at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-west
The Paddock Review 