Art: Alison Prine
WHAT I KNOW OF “GOOD”
Bad things are going to happen.
– Ellen Bass, “Relax”
Perennials return without a thought
and so do volunteers from maples
and japonica. Nature recruits
another nursery at no extra cost.
Lab tests uncover few deficiencies.
Extra pounds aggravate,
but knees hold up and pressure
sits almost where it ought to be.
The computer has worked with ease
for months and my clamshell –
one hinge broke – still performs
like a phone without accessories.
There’s no husband to complain
about or children to invest life in.
A fresh pot of coffee brews
and rain clouds hide the sun.
I’ll pop five thousand mgs
of vitamins and prescribe
myself to stay indoors to iron
out complexities
of Samaritans, Fridays, grief,
times, advice, reviews,
movies, books, friends, food –
anything good antecedes.
Previously published in Panoplyzine
About the author:
From Assistant Professor of English to management trainer to retiree, Carolyn Martin has journeyed from New Jersey to Oregon to discover Douglas firs, months of rain, and dry summers. Her poems and book reviews have appeared in publications throughout North America and the UK, and her third poetry collection, Thin Places, was released by Kelsay Books in Summer 2017.
Art: Alison Prine, alisonprine.com
In the artist’s words:
Alison Prine’s debut collection of poems, Steel, won the Cider Press Review Book Award and was released in January 2016. Steel was named a finalist for the 2017 Vermont Book Award. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Harvard Review, Shenandoah, Field and Prairie Schooner among others. She lives in Burlington, Vermont where she works as a psychotherapist.