Morning Lesson by Merridawn Duckler

I’m lying in bed but my legs feel

roughly half the length they should be.

I’d dreamt I smuggled a fat person into a fast food franchise,

so it has been a productive day thus far.

But these legs bother me.

Am I walking on what should be the knees?

Wouldn’t my life have been entirely different if my legs crept

down for several more inches? At the movie

last night a giant woman beat me into the bathroom.

What if I had her legs? Thighs like a freeway underpass?

Calves screaming in the stock yard to gallop free? I’d rule the world

instead of just this dream, lugging my special burden.

The Russian proverb: a small dog stays

a puppy longer broods me. Look, I did mail that check

to the therapist, OK? He’s not sitting with the new patient, frowning,

thinking: you ungrateful jerkoff who I helped and helped, you never paid me

while the poor patient quakes with neuralgia in the shit storm of the soul,

wondering what hit him. Now he’s calm. Paid.

I did that. Me and my small feet.