Not What You Thought

You’re becoming a modest connoisseur
Of every day’s unexpected events,
Charming, destructive, merely unforeseen.

If you don’t just absorb them but notice—
Someone else changing plans, a stop for lunch,
A fraudulent charge on a credit card—

Little twists that reshape the arcs of days
But that tend to get absorbed, folded back—
Plans only delayed, new card in the mail,

A memory of a lunch half-recalled
Maybe once during small talk, years later
If ever—ordinary days fill up

With these turns, not just the ones that raise storms
With their butterfly wings, the boring ones
And the annoying ones soon forgotten.

But as you fall asleep, whatever end
Your waking hours reach, now you think how much
Of each next day’s unimaginable.