Old Roads, New Stories: A Literary Series
Because the Supreme Court is deciding whether to treat LGBTQ citizens as lesser-than, and the Misjudgment-in-Chief wants the Court to end DACA, and Hans Christian Anderson could have used a better ending, and November (Thanksgiving) seems like a good time to try telling his story again:
The Ugly Duckling
What happens in the next generation
when the ducklings of this one
have grown up knowing
swans are swans, and the sun
doesn’t care about whose feathers,
and the pond has no opinion
about whose feet come paddling,
what kind or color they are?
This is where the story
should jump-cut: to an old duck
quacking through a microphone
and seeing the backs of its audience
moving on,
just wakes in the water.
Geese fly over in their own V, leaving,
so gratefully out of earshot.
Even the Wind’s in a rush to be out of there
and gone.
Rob Carney’s new book The Book of Sharks is available now from Black Lawrence Press. Previous books include 88 Maps, Story Problems, and Weather Report.Read poetry by Rob Carney appearing in Terrain.org: 6th Annual Contest Finalist, 4th Annual Contest Winner, and Issue 30. And listen to a new radio interview with Rob Carney, and here’s an older radio interview.
Header photo by hansbenn, courtesy Pixabay.
