It must be Spring.
The begonias are vomiting diesel
Again,
Leaf blowers are whining like scapegoats
Condemned to die
Again
In a swirl
Of garbage and leaves,
And I don’t feel like being alive today.
Why must I
Again
Salute the pilfered flag
That just yesterday I glibly waved?
Somewhere a monstrous, moody moon
Lingers like a flashlight in an empty street,
Ready to plunge her sequined syringe
Into my unwitting, smoggy veins.
Somewhere bird watchers
And gardeners
And beekeepers
Swoon like submissive violins.
It must be Spring
Again.
I am choking on the dew.
I am lost in a maze of barbed-wire-wool,
Still cold, lacerated, hemmed in
Again
Like a fiery torment of acid tears
Spilling into a perverse pool
Of my own making,
And I don’t feel like being alive today.
Who are you
To assure me
That life is regenerative?
Somewhere I know that you are right,
But I don’t care. Not now.
I am an oil derrick
Wheezing night and day;
My demise is bound up in my riches,
And I don’t feel like being alive today.
Somewhere it is Fall
And somewhere it is Summer
And somewhere it is Winter
And maybe here it isn’t even Spring:
How quickly, how often the seasons change!
I am sober. I’ve never done a drug.
But the begonias are vomiting diesel
Again
And I don’t feel like being alive today.
Andy Posner is a resident of Dedham, Massachusetts. He grew up in Los Angeles and received his Bachelor’s degree in Spanish Language and Culture from California State University, Northridge. He moved to New England in 2007 to pursue an MA in Environmental Studies at Brown University. While there, he founded Capital Good Fund, a nonprofit that provides small personal loans and financial coaching to low-income residents of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Delaware, and Florida.
