NEW FEATHERS ANTHOLOGY
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Photo by Pawel Czerwinski
Revision
Joanne Esser


The trouble with the present is 
it’s a lot of work.
 
You have to keep redoing it,
every day a rewrite 
 
in the face of new plot twists
that insert themselves, unbidden,
 
into the narrative you had planned.
Not like the past, a well-plotted novel
 
that always ends the same way
no matter how many times you reread it. 
 
But now, you never get to the ending.
You can’t be sure the good people win,
 
that anyone is safe, or that love 
can be counted on to last.
 
You have to come back to the desk 
every day, pen poised to give order to
 
complications galore, the dizzying array
of windblown fates and intentions
 
that have been swept out of the blue
into your doorway today.
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