Photography © Edward S. Gault

 

Sentence

Sure my condition
upon recommendation
(so my existence isn’t brief
and no longer privatized)
proposes an opportunity
inspired both by fear
and a firmer resolve
not to over-focus
on myself not only
to exemplify my survival
to every middle-aged
male of my cardiac class,
but also to sink not
into obsolescence like paper
due to the computer
following a situation not unlike
Kafka’s Gregor Samsa’s
coleopterous transformation
(no doubt no thanks in part
to that furnished apartment
he imparted,
which makes the family
minus Gregor,
who’s deflated,
take a tram,
their car
full of sunshine,
into the country
to count their blessings
and consider his sister’s
metamorphosis),
but that doesn’t mean
I have to like it.

 

Recently retired from college teaching, D. R. James has published ten poetry collections, the most recent being Mobius Trip and Flip Requiem (Dos Madres Press, 2021, 2020), and his prose and poems have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and journals. James lives with his wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan.

Edward S. Gault is a poet and fine arts photographer living in Brighton, Massachusetts. His work has appeared in Oddball Magazine, Spectrum, Wilderness House Literary Review, Interlude, Currents, and Encore.