Poem Excluding Fiction

We live in the most fortunate of times. And
who’s to blame? Our moods like the four
seasons in a tinted window overlooking a
bank robbery. Everyone is raising children
on cable television, on leashes, on the slot
machines that have become our elegies. We
live other lives in high school, college, on the
porch reading the obituaries. Say I miss you
into the mirror while shaving, brushing teeth,
plucking something meant to grow forever.

Copyright © 2013 by Noah Falck. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day on October 3, 2013. Browse the Poem-a-Day archive.