Good Reason

Issue 16 | Summer 2026 |

 

 

People walk the market in stilts.
To either side, the peppers in cages struggle to carry a burn.

You always now ask a day to be made simple,
to sit outside flung on the grass.
For a year you’ve been waiting for autumn’s lessons to come
chilled to the table. A door slams each time

the feast widens. Leaves hangnail from a cottonwood
and no wind, just the roots of the future.

The conversation goes on and back and sunlight comes
out of your body like a small planet.