Enjoy Being Human

John Michael Flynn

Downturn

From a porch an unemployed carpenter
gives the finger one more time to spy satellites.
He steps back inside, keeps all lights off.

This is his mother's house, a source of shame
at his age to live there now, bankrupted by bad loans
divorced and aging in what they call the new economy.

He must breathe so again steps on to the porch.
He finds no smell in the unwashed air,
no sounds and he hugs himself to stay warm.

He's grown careful, holds tightly to his house key
evaluates signs of failure in the neighborhood,
rates the angles and ghosts that visit him.

To accept fate, to be marred in mutable darkness
to grow into challenges that define losing—
no horsemen, no miracles to assist him.


About John Michael Flynn

Contributor headshot, John Michael Flynn

John Michael Flynn was the 2017 Writer In Residence at Carl Sandburg's home, Connemara, now a U.S. National Park in North Carolina. Previous poetry collections include Restless Vanishings (2017), Keepers Meet Questing Eyes (2014), and Moments Between Cities (1997). He's published two novels under the name, Basil Rosa (www.basilrosa.com).

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