Photography © Edward S. Gault

 

Still Breathing

All the downtown buildings loom like giant tombstones, and the
    moon hangs in a bird cage from
the sky, and the streets are strewn with wet plastic bags and
bar band flyers, and a lone drunk
is holding up a
lamp-post while
trying
to
smoke
a
butt
he’s found
on the side-
walk, as if it had
just been there, waiting for him – still
good, still breathing – as he steadies himself against the
    lamp-post, again, ready for the
universe to go
another
savage
round
of
jabs
and
body
blows, both of
them knowing there’s no
way he’s gonna throw this damn fight.

 

Jason Ryberg is the author of eighteen books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and countless love letters, never sent. He is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection of poems is Fence Post Blues (River Dog Press, 2023).

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.