Preferring What’s Here

The right chair. Cushioned.
Not too straight. Not too low to the table.
Ideally in a corner, facing outwards.
Not near a restaurant music stage,
or speakers. Or smokers.
Food that doesn’t stick in the teeth.
A pleasing volume for private conversation.

And that’s just in restaurants.
I know exactly what I like
in bed pillows too:
not hard, not too puffy.
It’s not that I’m particular. That is,
without my preferences fulfilled,
I can be ok, I mostly can.

And isn’t it good by now in life,
to be well aware of what I relish?
Though I take my pleasure
in small desires satisfied,
I try to live easy to please.
Not, like in a Goldilocks plot,
expecting things to be just right.

I called myself a Comfort Queen
because I love and seek it
on this sensory planet of pleasures.
Not on an island like Pinocchio’s,
not for soporific quelling of the spirit,
but for the sake
of my own soul’s nurture.

Comfort, not essential, but always
humbly acknowledged as a gift.
I lie in the hammock grateful
for the Ciruela tree that holds me.
Looking for comfort, quietly,
without any desperation,
I pray to prefer whatever is here.

©Susa Silvermarie 2025