But You Could Laugh at Our Hopelessness, by Nano Taggart

Sky Solidified, by Andrew Kent-Marvick (USA). Contemporary. Click image for artist site.

But You Could Laugh at Our Hopelessness

A hard division splits two panes to the right of centre. Graffiti climbs from its
concrete and inhabits us at the underpass. Clouds consume our excesses, bear the 
grease of machines long-since retired.  We are cloistered in the perfect place to make
things that matter to almost no one. Taught to crouch under our desks when 
the sirens sounded and not much else, the open spaces slow us down, interrupt our
languages with wind and dust. We court fear like a darker world might bolster this
by comparison. The gold-trimmed failure is a crown and those around us care too
much to even let us down easy—it’s not a metaphor that Cato’s daughter swallowed
fire.(1) Brows furrow at the edge of questions and daylight’s running down. A lone fox-
glove spills pink against the backdrop of a tincture-blue sky dulled by the threat of
storm. More and more we veer toward silence in the hours that are actually ours. 

1) Words borrowed from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 1/Act 3, Scene 3

Nano Taggart

This poem was previously published in Terrain.

Nano Taggart probably likes your dogs better than his neighbours, and is a founding editor of Sugar House Review. By day, he works as a fundraiser for the Utah Shakespeare Festival. By night, he researches new hot sauces for his collection. He's a co-recipient from a grant from the Utah Division of Arts and Museums, and you can see some of his stuff in Terrain.org, Verse Daily, The American Journal of Poetry, and on some beautiful broadsides for sale at Art Works Gallery in Cedar City, Utah.