Mike Young
Easier
This life I think is small.
Forget who the statue alleges
and see how the shoulders ache.
They don’t. Ridges kneaded into
the material. You have a feeling
and make it out there into something
that makes for feeling: saudade.
Rowboat on the lawn. Cherrypicker
dude slaps the traffic light
that won’t choose.
Please ask if you need a high
chair. How did the jogger end up—
I mean, look up? PEACEFUL lights up:
hot new feeling goal. But it can only ever end
up as PEACE WITH. The place is still open,
you just can’t go inside.
In my easier life,
a production assistant with a clipboard,
walkie-talkie, miner’s lamp—you know, total
investment—checks in with each of
my muscles and tells them that today
is nothing to drag in. Nothing to clang
after. Perfectly good holographic
streamers tied to street name poles.
Every yard should give away
a red armchair and a dirty mirror,
and they do.
Mike Young is the author of Sprezzatura, Look! Look! Fe
