like a torch, expect it light my way.
Illuminate all the potholes.
Let me know take the curve.
But of course it fails at the intersection.
I don’t mean the light extinguishes,
I mean I still have to decide:
right, left, or continue on.
The road winds through the woods.
I touch the brake before the bend.
Fear what I might meet, swerve to avoid
and greet a tree, or come to a halt in a ditch
overgrown with unfriendly weeds.
Like a dog, hope is a treat I fail to chew.
I gulp it down and beg for more.
Most results distinguished by tepid applause,
I head in another direction
and listen to the fading caterwauling
of incompletion.
Doug Van Hooser has had poetry appear in Chariton Review, Split Rock Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Poetry Quarterly among other publications. His fiction can be found in Red Earth Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Bending Genres Journal. Doug’s play, “Here Ye, Hear Ye”, will be performed this summer (2019) at McKaw Theatre in Chicago.
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