When Plans A to U don’t work for you,

and like a slippery fish, it all flits away,

finally try this, this, this, this, or this:

Plan V

Again, as said in Plans K, N, and R, don’t quit.

And, as said in Plans C and M, don’t be fake with it.

Please don’t settle on Plan T’s tossing out of all niceties.

No one likes a stinky fish.

Plan W

Okay, a compromise, so try this.

As you are minted, make yourself tough as stone,

but lovable in spite. Sad if that too doesn’t work.

Plan X

As one would temper cement in its mixing,

try tempering yourself a mild temperament

but with a bit of a bite. Maybe a peppermint.

Plan Y

Whatever scent, smile a good morning confident.

Yeah, try this.

All the swordfish would then carve out the firmament.

And then, indeed, let yourself rise from the vault,

a whale from the blue.

Hope that works for you, but if not…

Plan Z

Try a kind of mindfulness.

Sense the breadth as you breathe, that instant

when you first meet me, and every other fish

in or out of the humongous sea.

And then, for that eternity, sense a lasting scent

of a soul. It should be all around us in the spray.

Like a welcome waft of steam on a cold day.

We mammals are all warm-blooded animals.

This relates, you’ll recall, to Plan A.

So, yup, a good time to revert back to that.

Just be yourself, as heavenly made.

Joe Bisicchia writes of our shared dynamic. An Honorable Mention recipient for the Fernando Rielo XXXII World Prize for Mystical Poetry, he has written four published collections of poetry. He also has composed three hundred individual works that have been published in over one hundred publications such as Quibble Lit, California Quarterly, pacificReview, The Concrete Desert Review, Balloons Literary Journal, Triggerfish Critical Review, Sheepshead Review, Gone Lawn, The Tiger Moth Review, Agape Review, and more. The former broadcaster is director of public affairs for a health system in New Jersey and is a Practicing Excellence certified clinician coach. He earned his BA at La Salle University and is currently on the MFA track at Lindenwood University. To see more of his work, visit JoeBisicchia.com. On X follow him @TheB_Line and on Instagram @joebisicchia.