The man who kicks
down the sidewalk
on his razor scooter
is too big for it
by maybe a half foot,
but he’s young,
and I imagine him
commuting to some job
he hates on this last gift
of childhood,
saving until he can get
something new.
Even this far inland I
can smell the ocean
this morning.
The weather is
about to change.
About:
John Brantingham is currently and always thinking about radical wonder. He is a New York State Council on the Arts Grant Recipient for 2024, and he was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been in hundreds of magazines and The Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2022. He has twenty-two books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction.
Illustration by Scalar Comet. Based on Original Photography by Muhammad Ahmad via Unsplash
