Even the minimalist drinks beer, though he lives alone in a modest place
and walks everywhere. Sits on the floor with Rumi and a frying pan
with couscous. He touches himself to the rhythm of pixels on a screen;
contemplates the mystery of a bulb, red and yellow flame of Semper
Augustus streaming down his face. A wasp is crawling on the ceiling,
lost among plaster stalactites. He perceives it has taken a wrong turn, opens
the window for the breeze to draw it out, watches it regain a sense of bearing
and fly home. He writes new song as the high bard, prays for the whole world
to listen and not come home empty and grieving at the hour of their death.
He also rents Gag Factor, one through ten, stares, unblinking, at Asian
spice and honey blondes fresh off the bus from Winnipeg, their mouths
pulled open wide for communion–his one offering of faith in free enterprise.
Robin Carstensen has served as an associate editor for the Cimarron Review at Oklahoma State University where she earned her doctorate in English in Spring 2011. Her most recent work is published or forthcoming in Dos Passos Review, Naugatuck River Review, Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders, South Dakota Review, Tusculum Review, and Weber: The Contemporary West.
*Photo courtesy of timsnell.