Lifestyles

Miracle how many, and quickly before stopping each and any day: 
Perhaps more fortunate to be gifted wings, even just one—
This oracle fist I carry is the worst of it, never well-defended. 
Simply not built to be a moat upon a fortress,
And more often than not a beam of light manages to delay me by my mane, 
Whatever that is.
If I were building these contraptions over again, 
I might put something different in the center—
Couldn’t say what,
But probably tulips.
Or portals made out of tulips, 
Looking like portholes
For doing something spooky,
Like those things in our eyes called photoreceptors 
(Those silly little holes on the face),
Connected to the brain with loopy cables. 
Yeah, I know that is how the light gets in, 
Blinding as Zeus . . .
And you can’t even turn yourself into a cow, 
Gadfly or no.
Well, try to be a noun that can also spring. 
Better that than stuck on a plain like a town.
Either way in this body you’ll be sure to get down, 
Here, where all the flowers grow
At the level of children, 
And misery.
Girl, you will pretend to control the weather, 
But you are broke as rain.
Took me decades, but I can say it now:
Wonder we’ve made it this far, you and I,
Look around at all this litter and sunshine, all falling down.

Read more from Issue 23.1.