The World Is Like That Too, The Journey Begins—Again, & Sorrow’s Kitchen

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Diane Gottlieb

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The World Is Like That Too

for Matthew

I read a poem that said the world was there to fuck us.
It was a sad poem, an angry poem. A poem

of loss and longing and curse words and a girl
named Natasha. I love that poem

for its messiness, an ice-cream sundae of a poem,
pistachio melting, hot fudge dripping

down the sides of the glass. A poem
mixing everything—a fucking kitchen sink of a poem.

The world is a mess
and the cleaning crew is out to lunch.

The world. It’s a cat
and we’re its mouse. It tosses us up and up

emboldened by our squeals. We drop. We fall.
And then our hearts stop—game over.

Fuck me. Fuck you.
Fuck Natasha.

But what about the cat?
Sunning by the window, dreaming

cat dreams of bothering birds? Sometimes,
mice burrow under blankets of hay. Sometimes,

the world holds us gently. Makes love to us.
Plants its seed,

watches us bloom.
The world is like that too.

__________

The Journey Begins

He holds a pale pink rose. Carries
his burdens in burlap. A small
sack, resting on a stick on his shoulder.

The Fool

eager gaze, rising to the sky,
sees not what’s at his feet.
The Fool
how I love your dumb
courage!
The Fool
To live knowing nothing.
The Fool
To float o’er solid ground.
The Fool
To waltz into spring
beyond wild winter winds.
The Fool
To step so sure of foot
straight off a cliff.

___________

Sorrow’s Kitchen

What if we could coat
our grief in flour,

bury its salt underground?
What would rise

from winter’s harsh soil?
Bloom from life’s raw dough?

On the gray counter
the cup

sits empty. Where bread
once rose golden—

the oven’s cool racks
now bare. Oh, to breathe

the yeast, the egg-
washed dough,

each thought a braid,
each word a seed.

__________

Diane Gottlieb is the editor of Awakenings: Stories of Body & Consciousness and the Prose/CNF Editor for Emerge Literary Journal. Her writing appears in Brevity, Witness, River Teeth, Florida Review, Colorado Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Hippocampus Magazine, Huffington Post, and The Rumpus, among many other lovely places. She is the winner of Tiferet Journal’s 2021 Writing Contest in nonfiction, longlisted in 2023 and 2024 at Wigleaf Top 50, and a finalist for Hole in the Head Review’s 2024 Charles Simic Poetry Prize and The Florida Review’s 2023 Editor’s Prize for Creative Nonfiction. Find her at https://dianegottlieb.com and @DianeGotAuthor.

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