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
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,
cooked 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.
