feeling vulnerable

i feel vulnerable, but i don’t know why

living alone up here on the hill

no one really in scream-hearing range

i’ve kept the front door locked

so i am the one who lets visitors in

i think i’ll lock the back door now, too

comfort and taxes

strange to think of Joseph worrying

about transporting his very pregnant wife

when she ought to have been pampered instead of uprooted

by an unyielding government ruling

that all the world should be taxed

just like us with petty but nagging

concerns for the well-being

of those we love that nudge

then jolt us with the truth

of our own inadequacy

to do what we ought, let alone

what we want

who

whiskered, whimsical

wishful-thinking

wrung dry by worry

little old man, little boy

youth and man

all part of one we lean on

often without empathy