… that maketh a man’s heart glad and maketh him sing, …
To become designated, mainly:
to be eligible for these sweepstakes,
deepest essential, perennial/s, oh so personal,
costing everything. To take one moment
to find one’s self suddenly visible,
composed, risibly, of those characters—
yr little name made legible in the ledger,
all merry, glad, & manageable even at the extremes.
Neither alleged nor even remotely outcast or leg-chained.
(Mainly if dashed to be yet elevated.)
So much still remaining that’s salvageable,
eventually teeming w/ consummate value, even
in the extremities.
Brett Foster is associate professor of English at Wheaton College. The Garbage Eater, his first collection of poems, was published last year by Northwestern University Press. A new collection, Fall Run Road, recently won Finishing Line Press’s chapbook competition, and is forthcoming.
