ISSUE: Winter 2023
the ogre of gratitude dangling like a chandelier from the rearview mirror asks if
you know how lucky you are, if you’ve meditated on that yet, if your heart
is as full as true practitioners agree it should be? oh yes, absolutely
yes, you want to answer, so much you can barely contain it.
and yet: if cherries with their dark flesh are a blessing, for example,
so is the indulgence of asking what’s next. because who knows?
from the ashtrayed turns this life has given you, maybe an empire.
from your wild heart, a reckless slumber, now that treatment is over,
your skin hangs in a symphony of corn husks, your eyes pie-widen
in the chronic search of something simpler: a doodle, a seed,
a borrowed cup of sugar. a chunk of moonstone, as ancient
as the moon itself. it’s hard, we hear you. the one day a month
you get to drive and everything feels dangerous, the cars ahead,
behind, the policeman directing traffic in the rain.
even the gravel is suspect. the sound of mercy skidding to a halt.
