Make Use

Make use of the things around you.

This light rain

Outside the window, for one.

This cigarette between my fingers,

These feet on the couch.

The faint sound of rock-and-roll,

The red Ferrari in my head.

The woman bumping

Drunkenly around in the kitchen …

Put it all in,

Make use.”

—Raymond Carver, from “Sunday Night,” in All of Us: The Collected Poems