Really, I feel fine. If a little dull. Only, we mustn’t let
the body know the policy’s null.

Don’t tell the lightning bolt or low-hanging branch.
Don’t tell the blue virus resting on its oars. And whatever
you do, don’t tell those stars that flicker with irony
charmed by my vulnerability, and don’t (among the many
who sometimes call to me)—don’t tell the sea.

What I need to steer between are the fierce facts
of honest risk, and the inoculation by ignorance—
else invite chaos by reckoning it so nearby,
run too fast away, and falling there—I,
being a thorough fool waving arms
at a humorous God equally uninsured
by faith or prayer.

—First Honorable Mention in the KYSO Flash Triple-F Writing Challenge

Lee Kisling

is a recent graduate of Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. In December 2013, his poetry chapbook The Lemon Bars of Parnassus was published by Parallel Press in Madison, Wisconsin. In 2014 his work was published by Stoneboat, Sixfold, Oberon, Bryant Literary Review, Off the Coast, and others. See more of his work at: leekisling.com.