"November 2024: It Won't Affect Us" and "I'm Done..." by Laurie Kuntz
FEBRUARY 2025
November 2024: It Won't Affect Us
When we sold democracy
for cheaper Pop Tarts,
many shrugged, saying:
It won't make a difference,
we'll continue as always.
Dirty dishes will pile, sills get dusted,
lawns mowed and houses painted.
The rains will come and go,
trees decorated for Christmas,
snow shoveled, and come June,
a neighbor's rose bush will shock us with bloom.
A calico cat will purr its owner awake
to get fed, and life will go on,
but somehow, each day coming,
we will feel the quotidian shift
a blaring headline will break us,
and affect our souls
so much so, that we hope
that rescued calico cat will claw
against the screen door
until we open it, again
and stare out at the distance
between acceptance and action.
---
I'm Done...
with feeling bad.
Gone are frosty memories,
baked arguments,
and myriad unmet expectations.
I'm done with
not eating the bread
nor spreading the butter.
I've had my fill of taking sides.
Running from distant thunder,
I'm done with the fallacy of spring,
and the rush to nowhere.
And, then, June enters
with her endless summer explosions
heard in my own life's backyard.
Her seasonal fires knock me still
a flared moment of heated days
bring a bloom of bougainvillea,
and the hover of winged things
drape around all that purple,
a shade I want to be cloaked in
when I am finally done.
---
1/15/2025
Laurie Kuntz’s books are: That Infinite Roar, Gyroscope Press, Talking Me Off The Roof, Kelsay Books, The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press, Simple Gestures, Texas Review Press, Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press, and Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press. Simple Gestures, won Texas Review’s Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won Blue Light Press’s Chapbook Contest. She’s been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. In 2024, she won a Pushcart Prize. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, One Art, Sheila Na Gig, and other journals. Happily retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind. More at:
