Consolation Prize
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Although the word “assuage” is nicer
to look at than to say, that’s what we’re here
to do, assuage our guilt

among the ravaged paper flowers, the high-
school wrestling team drunk and high-fiving
on the veranda as they pass around
a certificate commending them for the size
of their long-distance telephone bill. The side

door screams metal on metal when anyone comes
or goes, but that’s the way the staff likes it. As for me,

I think I’d rather be a little more
like the old guy who can’t recollect my name
but who rushes to the threshold of weeping
every time he tells me about Israel’s prophets:
Jonah diminishing in the whale’s gut: tears well.
Jeremiah busting up the leaky cisterns: tears well.
Later, in the kitchen, he notices

I’m using the huge-ass toaster
as a mirror. I pretend to be fishing around in the fridge
for a broken and contrite heart,

but all I find is a plump link of sausage,
which I’m sure meant a broken heart
for some wretched head

of livestock locked
in an aluminum pen,
wobbly and swollen
with chemically-enhanced feed.

The industrial-sized stove here has eight
burners, all of them set on “HI,” converging
into one awkward halo. This monumental flame
itself bursts into flame, but it’s difficult to determine
if this new light is light, or another sort
of shadow, a source of heat, maybe peace, maybe
devastation, or what? The race car driver

thrashes hysterically for the invisible burning
that’s all over his white jump suit
festooned with kaleidoscopic spark plug and laundry detergent ads.
His crew showers him down
with what looks like the artificial snow
you spray on your front window.
He goes limp. “Merry X-MAS!!!” Cut
to commercial. The Myth

of the Morning Star goes something like this: a little girl
on the Island of the Dead wants to aid her friends
in their long canoe journey to . . . I’m not sure where,
I wasn’t listening too close then. The sun guides
by day, the moon and stars by night, so she will be

the Morning Star, transfigured into pure light,
fastened with a tether around her waist
so as not to sail out into forever.
But we know now that it’s actually a planet: Venus.
And we know that the tether does get cut, and someone is lost
forever. An acquaintance of mine stopped me

on the street last night to tell me
of the conversation the two of us once had
which, frankly, I don’t even remember,

but he says saved his life. I glance at the clock
on the building behind him as he talks.
I don’t mean to do it, but he notices

and it breaks his heart. Respectfully
submitted. Darken the door. If love
really does raise the dead, please count me in.