Short-comings

By Steven Hendrix

I hung a row of Christmas lights
that stopped three quarters of the way
across my in-laws’ garage.

Instead of feeling frustrated
like I might have in the past,
I felt a tinge of pride

At having come up short again,
sensing that the Christmas lights
were my metaphor for life,

For everything I do seems to
prematurely terminate,
not from lack of effort, I think,

But from the fact that life
or the cosmos has a weird way
of frustrating human aspiration

Just when