Of Joy: I Have News For You

by Tony Hoagland
There are people who do not see a broken playground swing as a symbol of ruined childhood and there are people who don't interpret the behavior of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process. There are people who don't walk past an empty swimming pool and think about past pleasures unrecoverable and then stand there blocking the sidewalk for other pedestrians. I have read about a town somewhere in California where human beings do not send their sinuous feeder roots deep into the potting soil of others' emotional lives as if they were greedy six-year-olds sucking the last half-inch of milkshake up through a noisy straw; and other persons in the Midwest who can kiss without debating the imperialist baggage of heterosexuality. Do you see that creamy, lemon-yellow moon? There are some people, unlike me and you, who do not yearn after fame or love or quantities of money as unattainable as that moon; thus, they do not later have to waste more time defaming the object of their former ardor. Or consequently run and crucify themselves in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha. I have news for you— there are people who get up in the morning and cross a room and open a window to let the sweet breeze in and let it touch them all over their faces and bodies. National Poetry Month #15