The Web in Your Path
As you walk along the trail
and your face encounters a spider’s web,
resist the instinct to thrash your arms
violently around, to clear the web away
from the path, to swipe at it with a stick,
or force your way through.
Consider the work that has gone into it.
Not only the hours of hard labor—
frantic spinning of thread throughout the night—
but the artistry.
How would you feel if some animal
larger than you came tromping through your yard
and bumped into your home, took out
a window or busted through a corner?
What if this large animal—a bear,
perhaps a giant—
became irritated by your irrelevant shack
and thrashed angrily about, demolishing
your roof, your secure home, tearing it
down to its foundation?
Think of how hard you worked to create
this safe place for your family—
this home where you can eat and rest,
snuggle with your loved ones,
maybe play a board game or watch a movie.
All of those hours of work in the office,
or at the restaurant waiting on stuck-up
bougie couples who think they’re better
because of their clothes or cars or stocks—
half a life working toward earning
mortgage money. All to create
this perfect little web.
When you encounter the web in the path,
step calmly back, gently pinch the thread
affixed to your face, and walk around the trees
or bushes upon which the spider’s home is attached.
That way, someone else will destroy it instead of you.
And years from now when you are left alone
in a dilapidated shack that drips leaf-infused
scum from your leaking roof, you can rest
assured that your predicament
is through no fault of your own.
Power of Positive Thinking
I'm going to a new home,
where the servers are all robots,
and the food is made of dreams.
I'm not afraid,
because I know that anything is possible
in this all-inclusive resort.
I'll see my loved ones daily:
the living ones will grudgingly stop by,
and the dead are sure to flirt with my daydreams.
Luxurious, adjustable bed,
cable TV, and a cabin companion
for cards, conversation, and laughter.
Gourmet meals,
unlimited snacks and drinks,
and the recreation area drenched in sunlight.
In our new palace, the rules don't matter,
and the only thing that counts is an appreciation
for beautiful memories of warm, fuzzy moments gone by.
I'll make myself happy there,
in the land of the living dead,
my Hospice.
In the cubed wastelands of the office,
an abandoned ghost town,
tumbleweeds collect under plywood desks,
against felt walls and corners,
no open space to roam.
Mouse’s homeland is abundant
with abandoned foods:
cookies and crackers, trail mix and packaged pies
all left behind, well preserved, easy to access.
Nearly three rings around the sun—
a paradise of plenty, six square meals a day—
no predators.
The pandemic wears on,
food becomes harder to find,
and, once found, is barely palatable.
The distant companion at cube 3416 WHR
looks weak, too weak to put up a fight,
still enough meat on the bones,
at least at the moment.
It’s an option, these final crumbs consumed.
People gradually return to their cubes,
not as often as before, only occasionally,
half a dozen sunrises between intrusions.
Pizza crusts, crackers, cookies, crumbs,
scarce, but replenished.
Mouse’s distant companion never
looked so relieved.
Celebratory Condolence
Sometimes I worry
that I might say the wrong thing
on a sympathy card,
or birthday card,
or worse, that I might
mix up the cards:
my over-the-hill, fifty-year-old friend receiving
“I know this is a difficult time for you,
but you will get through this,”
making him worry that this side of
the mid-life line is not all
it’s cracked up to be;
my mourning colleague, fingertips damp
from corralling tears, reading,
“Celebrate this day! Now begins the exciting
next chapter in your life. The best days
are yet to come!”
and sniveling herself from sorrow to anger,
determined to give me a piece of her mind.
Perhaps “thinking of you” is the safest phrase,
whether offering congratulation or condolence,
followed by “thoughts and prayers”
and an affectionate signature.
Barefoot
The girl with hunger in her eyes
wanted to scream,
to brush the glitter of her hometown from her stilettos,
and cartwheel to freedom.
Her sense of not belonging in the city’s pulse:
a secret so dark and deep
it could never be shared,
(though everyone close to her
could smell it).
He took her hand,
led her to his car,
coerced her away from the city’s disco and glitter
to a barefoot world she thought she wanted
where the only sound is the wind,
the only glitter is the stars,
the only dance music
is the beating of her heart next to his.
Eric D. Goodman lives and writes in Maryland, where he’s remained sheltered in place during the pandemic and beyond, spending a portion of his hermithood writing poetry. His first book of poetry, Faraway Tables, is coming in spring 2024 from Yorkshire Press. He’s author ofWrecks and Ruins (Loyola University’s Apprentice House Press, 2022) The Color of Jadeite (Apprentice House, 2020), Setting the Family Free(Apprentice House, 2019), Womb: a novel in utero (Merge Publishing, 2017) Tracks: A Novel in Stories (Atticus Books, 2011), and Flightless Goose, (Writers Lair Books, 2008). More than a hundred short stories, articles, travel stories, and poems have been published in literary journals, magazines, and periodicals. Learn more about Eric and his writing at www.EricDGoodman.com.
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