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Of This Our Burgeoning District
Matthew Byrne
Nothing is ever wrong with Nathan.
Age airbrushes his features,
affirms his sense of entitlement.
He is drawn to anything that reflects,
even if it yields only his vaporous outline.
Sure, he's been the butt of cosmic jokes.
But Nathan confronts tragedy
as a sorry foe to whom he'll never lose.
He's vetoed sadness from his life.
Nathan has a recurring dream.
He stands on the shore of a crowded beach,
awaiting a sky-scraping tidal wave.
Everyone runs for cover, screaming,
but he stands, chest out, fearless.
Right before the wave hits, he sees
his image in it, and so ends the dream.
We all know Nathan is in dire need of therapy,
which makes us love him all the more,
and was the deciding factor
in our electing him superintendent
of this our burgeoning district.
© Matthew Byrne
Matthew Byrne is employed by an insurance brokerage in Chicago. He has an MFA in poetry from the University of Montana, where he served as the poetry editor of CutBank for a year. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Antioch Review, Exquisite Corpse, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Hollins Critic, Lynx Eye, The Seattle Review, and Sulphur River Literary Review.
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