Issue 47.1

Getting On

by Heath Joseph Wooten

You could say I stopped looking for horses
where grass didn’t grow. Or you could say

I took my time watching salt create
an inspired list of blossoms. In any case,

I held up my hands and the shed out back
became a photograph of a shed

out back. I asked the grass if it was still expecting
ducks, and it declined to respond. I romanced

the shallow rut where a fox no doubt
believed it had some business with germination.

I’ve been guilty too. I forgot to think of you
when I carved a chicken the other day.

I got in bed and didn’t bother with gratitude,
and that sleep—that accretion of milk—

was so deep that when the storm came
and bent the grass into new angles,

I slept regardless. I sipped tepid water.
I gathered twigs with no inclination toward fire.

About the Author

Heath Joseph Wooten (he/him) is a poet and scholar by certain metrics. He is a PhD student in Literature at the University of Mississippi, and he received his MFA in poetry from Northern Michigan University. His poetry has most recently appeared in Dialogist, Meridian, and & Change.