question asked by Savannah Dudley
Uproarious joy drapes loosely over conflict,
internal dialogue between self & self-with-panic.
Beginnings of celebrations: Natasha Chen,
a CNN reporter, says, This is a party—
we have drag queens & an inflatable dinosaur.
The future is a snake hole in the garden,
the past a broken music box.
I’m getting used to the possibility
of hope, although it taunts,
says, Cower! Hide! Run!
I’ve not been infected
with true belief in anything.
Ace Boggess (he/him) is the author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, and The Prisoners. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.