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Don’t come at night. God closes doors and then opens them right up. I start remembering all those incidents on the news. The violence. Teeth getting knocked out. I’m sick of this (expletive). The dog knew it was coming. He started barking and jumped off the bed. Then the house started shaking. It felt like I was on a boat in choppy seas. Someone asked, “Is it true that whenever you walk on the streets, you get stabbed?” My 85-year-old neighbor still remembers how painful it was. We’re not really going to know that, though, without some combination of a time machine and an experiment we can’t do.

All the Doo-dah Day

We’ve probably found the oldest smiley emoji. As for the interpretation, you may certainly choose your own. None of it makes sense. It’s like my legs have carried me here by themselves. We don’t have a grasp on what the mechanism is yet. The real soldiers wear rags on their faces. I’m looking, but I don’t see my child. Things happen to people, and people don’t really understand how easily those things can happen. First they’re an animal, then they’re a volcano, then they’re playing with their cat, then they’re making songs, then they don’t finish the song and they’re jumping into the void from an elevated point.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of The Loser’s Guide to Street Fighting, winner of the 2017 Lorien Prize for Poetry from Thoughtcrime Press, and Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.

Copyright © 2017 by Howie Good