1
Bless the suicides
who live short lives
of appalling cold.
And bless me.
I drink heavily enough
to be a poet.

Words yell and sigh

like wild boys of twelve

racing on ten-speeds

into the vast,

monotonous sunlight

bordered by green.

Back from the country of the dead

with a chest-length rabbinical beard

and purplish bruises

where the eyes should be.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011), as well as numerous print and digital poetry chapbooks, including most recently Inspired Remnants from Red Ceilings Press and The Penalty for Trying from Ten Pages Press.