May 3, 2016

windfall

When the jackpot edged up to the stratosphere, I couldn't help myself,
stood in line like everyone else in town to play the lottery.
As the numbers tumbled out of their cage like hatched prisoners,
I clutched my tickets and let my heart wander to that impossibly distant island
where luck makes its home, trolling through a series of images made shimmery
by the filmy oasis of fortune. As the odds would have it, my math was all wrong,
and I returned to the plot of my present tense, hauling the recycling
to the curb and putting up a pot of rice on the stove. Still, I moved through the days
squinting at the distance, waiting for the lighthouse wink of a windfall,
which of course was already there at my feet, had I, even once, looked down.