Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

Dead Elephant

He says I only need a handyman
and a couple of Mexicans with a Clorox bottle.
He says I should never quote him
or use his name
and that he’s speaking “off the record” to me.
So many people have been trying to rip me off.
Thirty thousand for this.
Nine thousand for that.
I have been pushed back and forth like a dead elephant
floating in the river.
It is refreshing to finally have a person come
who is a person,
who still knows what it means to tell the truth.
He told me not to worry
and to wait till I have a real problem.
My father tells me the same thing.
He says, “You have no real problems. You don’t know what real problems are.”
I guess he’s right.
So today I am going back to writing and listening to the birds
and being grateful for my small “problems”
while they still are small.