Doing Nothing
by Gavin Lambert
My daughter is on the floor
Watching tv.
She likes it.
Sometimes, after watching for a while,
She’ll get up and come over
To my chair and prop her elbow up on
Its arm.
“Wha’ shou doin’, daddy?”
She’s three and is the only one, it seems,
Who’s remotely interested.
“Nothing,” I usually say and stop and
Talk to her for a moment before going
Back to it, back to nothing.
Sometimes she’ll watch me.
Sometimes she’ll try to type on the keyboard with me.
But she usually goes back to her spot
On the floor, at my side, back
To watching tv or coloring or looking
At her books.
Even she is only so interested.
But now she’s watching her
Movie, a cartoon about the rain forest
And pollution and deforestation and fairies
And talking trees
and here I am, doing…
nothing.
GAVIN LAMBERT has had work in both print and on-line publications (Thieves Jargon, remark., Adirondack Review, Dead Mule, TorkStar, Fiction Fix). He is on the Poets-in-the-Branches (sponsored by Poets House) committee for Jacksonvile, Florida's library system, and is an associate editor of Fiction Fix (University of North Florida, Black Osprey Press).
My daughter is on the floor
Watching tv.
She likes it.
Sometimes, after watching for a while,
She’ll get up and come over
To my chair and prop her elbow up on
Its arm.
“Wha’ shou doin’, daddy?”
She’s three and is the only one, it seems,
Who’s remotely interested.
“Nothing,” I usually say and stop and
Talk to her for a moment before going
Back to it, back to nothing.
Sometimes she’ll watch me.
Sometimes she’ll try to type on the keyboard with me.
But she usually goes back to her spot
On the floor, at my side, back
To watching tv or coloring or looking
At her books.
Even she is only so interested.
But now she’s watching her
Movie, a cartoon about the rain forest
And pollution and deforestation and fairies
And talking trees
and here I am, doing…
nothing.
GAVIN LAMBERT has had work in both print and on-line publications (Thieves Jargon, remark., Adirondack Review, Dead Mule, TorkStar, Fiction Fix). He is on the Poets-in-the-Branches (sponsored by Poets House) committee for Jacksonvile, Florida's library system, and is an associate editor of Fiction Fix (University of North Florida, Black Osprey Press).
