ISSUE: Winter 2023
in exchange for a public chance at a longer private life, you give them
not your body, but your body’s one error in calculation. the swerve,
detour, blunder unique to your system. you give them the soft scribble
of your consent. in exchange for a future where you might run
among penguins, or consider the altitude of a lark, his small brown body
racing vertically into the sky, you agree to be watched like a hawk,
asked hundreds of times if you’re ok, if there’s anything they can get you.
longer life, most people think. glass of water, most people say,
since there is often some small thing lodged in the throat.
you remember that larks sing when they fly, unlike any other bird.
