Poetic Musings: Credit Card Tanka by Zane Parks

this credit card

already at its limit

I employ

this frosty morning

to scrape my windshield

American Tanka, 1, 1996

Zane Parks

Commentary by Michael Dylan Welch: The poet describes an objective scene with tactile immediacy. We hear the scrape of the windshield, see the white trails of frost curl from the credit card. The credit card may be at its limit financially, but not physically, and now it is gaining even further use as a makeshift ice scraper. The introspectiveness comes from the poet’s awareness that he shouldn’t be maxing out his credit car, just as he would be better off using a proper ice scraper. Not only is he misusing the credit card to scrape the windshield, it seems he is also misusing it financially. The poet is aware of this double misuse and becomes aware of it through this understatedly presented introspective moment.