If We Do Go, Let's



     The field's post-Impressionist tone, unremarkable, postcard-like, insists
you hunker down. Your endurance suspect. “Tiredness,” “annoyance,”

      whatever paralyzes the endorphins and dulls the zeal, give it whatever
term, just not anything medical. As I've seen the medical, the plain

      sterile dictates of the wrongfully influential space. A field of metal, skin
taking fluorescence like pills. Antiseptic light. Light seeping through to

      iris. It's echoing severity. Severing the stitches. Each ward a causeway,
interplay between munificence of a fabric, as if cut from overstock

      flooring and hung on rails, and the tyranny of a body whose air must be
evicted from it. So enjoy, wheeze thoroughly, and in congress

      with tradition, blame something. The tone. That terrible, repetitive tone
pulsing from the public booths. Posters distorting the view. Possibility.












Gareth Lee lives in New Jersey and teaches literature and writing. His work has recently appeared (or is forthcoming) in The Canary, Denver Quarterly, First Intensity, Northwest Review, POOL, and elsewhere.






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