What’s Next – A Poem by Carol Good

What’s next

I bought this desk in 1975
from a friend’s father
who refinished furniture

A surplus teacher’s desk
of solid oak, three heavy drawers
on each side of a skirted knee-hole

Straddled by a shallow wide drawer
with compartments
containing a lifetime of bits and bobs

Books and papers and tchotchkes
have designated parking spots
on the lot-sized desktop

Years later
a thickly painted wheeled desk chair
arrived as a gift

Fine oak grain revealed
when scraped bare
again

Now a matched pair
yoked oak work horses
help me plough

Note: This poem was also published previously in the League of Canadian Poets’ Fresh Voices 25.

About Carol Good

Since retiring, Carol has redirected her creativity into writing – mostly poetry. Her pandemic projects have included publishing of her first poetry collection – Alive & 65: a celebration for her 65th birthday and joining the League of Canadian Poets. She lives in an octagonal century home with her very handy husband located on the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. She recognizes the land as being home and traditional territory to other Indigenous people since time immemorial.