from my book Meteorology

Ars Poetica

Then this happens, so that happens. And you're older again.

The sky, a cast iron door, shuts without your consent:

Some sickly stars. De-ja vu

Is what happens when you know you could stop.

All this thinking, and you're still there.

Not even the right questions. So you put it down

To the long commute home. Open a beer.

It's hard enough just making friends.

Just making the time to eat right and shower.

To visit the zoo, see the cheetahs,

And still speak the enemy's language.

Dignity and another word for what it takes to survive.

The way they pace around. As if someone, some intimation tells them to

Make this smaller place their own. Tells them, yes. Tells them a lie.

from my book Meteorology (BOA Editions)

First published in The Northwest Review