Issue 5, Winter 2008

the last place
by Skip Fox

a door on the prairie amid lost winds strapped on the back
of a horse, itself strapped to a locomotive, which in turn to
the earth and so forth. a boy's castle, wood, with a family, on
a country road. for the man who attempts to elude necessity,
the man who still seeks an impunity ananke does not concede,
a garland, crown of sweet laurel, ivy and vine, the world's best
wishes as florets in auxiliary cluster to adorn that clearest of
brows, eyes in heavenly blindness. where what I was, so I am.
where I was going, where I am going, never the issue. insert
ringing of bell. waking from a dream in the shape of a cloud.
insert meds, little cups.  insert thinking, "It's come to this,' in-
articulate at last, wasting away in your own bed. that which
was assigned to you, will you have done it? what surprise lurks
in the shadows of what you already knew were its rewards?