Prometheus
By Lauren Suchenski
When I pass the financial planning firm;
the capital management branch on main street
named Prometheus, his cursed flame pressing its wily head
to the side of a signpost - wooden, crafted, cobbled, gleaming;
the filament of gold paint, divorced entirely from its
rooted value, just simply a shade of paint, a hue, a home depot
selection
the ineffable loss—
I find
as I careen down the plastered avenue
the calm serene faces, the drinks on tap
the soft wordplay of a chalked sign,
welcoming me inside to purchase pressed stationery
and clattering rings salvaged from another shore
I know that the liver still resting inside the paper
bag of my body is grateful to not be
wrestled from my folds of musculature and the
strapped skin of my stomach; I know that perhaps the offer of
a scoop of transplanted gelato or a squashed crab cake
is benign, is progress, in so many words,
en route to an asphalted destination; replete with parking lots
and paved walkways to an air-conditioned building;
I know this world
stapled with glass and gleaming banisters is a better offer
than an eagle splicing itself below my ribcage daily;
I know in all logic, that the glow of timed streetlights
and the diligent boro garbage service is
some sort of
frenetic fantastical future in and of itself;
even when I lose sight of the plotline, even when
the character's names are too blunt and too crude
to romanticize, I know this world,
crooked as it is, must still burn bright;
but sometimes, I wonder about the pain,
and I wander towards the water,
wishing; wondering, perhaps, if long ago,
we could have put out the fire
Lauren Suchenski has a difficult relationship with punctuation. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and four times for The Best of the Net. Her full-length collection All You Can Measure (2022), as well as a chapbook Full of Ears and Eyes Am I (2017), is available from Finishing Line Press. Another chapbook, All Atmosphere, is also available from Selcouth Station (2022). More of her writing can be found on Instagram @lauren_suchenski.
