Paul Muldoon

POTATOES

You might as well be peeling potatoes
as going toe-to-toe

with the moment,
itself of no more moment

than the future, the future
from which you're

pretty much closed off.
Again and again the potato-peelers doff

their caps as the lord of the manor
rides by and, in like manner,

tips his hat to an idea of the past.
It is the potato which has surpassed

not only those months in the potato-pit
but your own being right up against it.

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