Susan Sonde’s most recent poem to appear here was “I Want to Know” February 2019).

The Universe is Not a Welfare State
By Susan Sonde

The astral wildlife’s been gaining on your astral plane. Your beer’s stale,
dartboard’s gone missing. Were the darts you aimed made of foam? Your
affliction’s poverty.

Plays on Broadway cost too much. Food and lodging likewise. You’ve
wallowed in antifreeze, once swallowed your uniform and neither did your
debtors any favors. A mystery

what causes charts to spike then flat line. In penitentiaries it’s overcrowding
that leads to riots. Speeches made to rectify get lost on those who’ve died in
solitary. Death’s not selective, the deceased not fussy. Corpses can wind up
on putting greens just as easily as they can in solitary. Lately

roustabouts from carnivals have lit my candles: my cake’s a-drip, icing waxy;
my universe expanding. Each match I light’s a star. I dream soft kisses
cratered faces. In dreams kisses asphyxiate. I dream to excess. Sleep’s my go-to
my adherent

a roustabout. Falling stars aren’t issued refunds. Golf balls gravity claims are
prone to loss. New putting greens in strip malls quickly turn shabby. No one
reads anymore. News dumbs the masses. Opioids line them up. Consider the
exorbitance

of communion: guests to fete in the radiant motel room, pricey priests who leave
their stigmata for nothing: so very bright matte blue on your communicant’s
bottom. Nota bene: same color

of the sky’s open lid. That hole big as a continent flouting its enormity over the
arctic. A flock of emojis wants to enter it. I believe apps want to land there too.
The wind’s full of prospects

the pockets of angels empty.