An Easier Life

Umbrellas are floating in the air,

They hang on walls and off of

Chairs; don’t patronize them.

Take them by the handle and be polite,

Like the surgeon to the patient on the table whisper,

“I’m going to open you up.”

Because it’s personal business, opening up.

But they were made to, you might argue.

This is true, I concede as not the only umbrella owner in the world.

The gears are all in place: the thin neck,

The plastic runner snapped into place by the metal

Spring clip. Not so much unlike

The way air might travel up the trachea,

Slide through an opening in the vocal chords with

Tension. Yet I wonder now, about all that,

If it’s all so easy and automatic, then why

Do we hold back? So unlike an umbrella.

Perhaps they would make better people.