Pushcart Nominee 2019

Howie Good

How to Prepare for Heartbreak

Summoning up
a kind of rage,
stubbornly walk,
or even crawl,
across a frozen sea
and then pass
through a hole in a fence,
on the other side
of which it’s dusk,
and maybe always is,
no people anywhere,
just stubble fields
and a black dog
with a red tongue.


Howie Good is on the pavement, thinking about the government shutdown.