Peter Cooley's Poem 'Another Of The Happiness Poems'

Another of the Happiness Poems

Peter Cooley

It’s not that we’re not dying.

Everything is dying.

We hear these rumors of the planet’s end

none of us will be around to watch.

It’s not that we’re not ugly.

We’re ugly.

Look at your feet, now that your shoes are off.

You could be a duck,

no, duck-billed platypus,

your feet distraction from your ugly nose.

It’s not that we’re not traveling,

we’re traveling.

But it’s not the broadback Mediterranean

carrying us against the world’s current.

It’s the imagined sea, imagined street,

the winged breakers, the waters we confuse with sky

willingly, so someone out there asks

are you flying or swimming?

That someone envies mortal happiness

like everyone on the other side, the dead

who