<< Back to Issue 7.1

Dopamax

4th Annual Poetry Contest winner, selected by Ronaldo V. Wilson

This is the baseline. These are the roots in the ground.
100mg twice a day. A cloud brought low,
a wintertime fog wisping my lips,
a tumbleweed swarm of sediment. Moss in a pattern
of no-pattern. Or is it dust bandaged into bricks,
piling thirsty rows? Somewhere there’s an anvil
that used to be an icon buried in the slush
and I’m praying for clemency or a good detective
on the lookout for a girl with a smear on the tip
of her tongue, a limp script. We can anchor
the index together, unclog the machine,
a lullaby dance for our reward. This is the dope,
the dose that brought me back to my body    
but the shorthand on the instructions stinks,
must be a leak in the septic or a checkmate
in the basement. Somebody bandage up my mouth
before I spit out a bunch of rude tulips. Somebody
throw me a landmark. Or a furnace.


​

Heather Bowlan is a writer, editor, and academic consultant living in Philadelphia.