The Literary Review
Marathon
Sometimes the world is, you know, okay.
Tonight I let my son-in-law drive us home
and I got to watch the river at its stillest,
evening sky just strong enough to hold up
the lightest of clouds and all the parts
hovering soft and still, the exact sky and water
when you know winter has finally left and
even though there will be more cold, it
will be the cold of summer. Every once
in a while you have those nights.
One time I ran a marathon. It seemed like
the only thing to do at the time. The world was
harsh then and I was caving in. The guy who won
the race worked as a cook somewhere; he
must have put up with customers bitching
about their runny eggs and then he’d take off
running and run until he had to go back
for his next shift.
The point is I was working nights in a
grocery store then, getting a few hours of sleep
then running as far as I could away from
my life until I too had to come back for my
next shift. Then this cook shows up, wins a
marathon, and becomes a hero for all of us
who thought we had no business running
races anyway, but here he is in the winner’s
circle, collecting his trophy, lacing his shoes up
for the breakfast crowd tomorrow.
- Casey Killingsworth
Answer the question
Ask me how
I’m doing
and I’ll tell you
about the time
a cougar ate
my brother’s cat
and my brother’s
response to that
tragedy would be to
let everyone know
how happy he is
being single and
so glad
his ex decided
not to move
with him into our
childhood home
to take care of
elderly parents,
who themselves say
things are great
because
they’ve lived long
enough to know
it does no good
to inform others
it hurts hard to live.
- Casey Killingsworth
Application for acceptance
into humanity
Some night an old worker might
yell across the pub “Hey Blondie,
is that you?” Nobody’s called me
that like forever but I yell back yeah
it’s me and somehow recognize
the guy through layers of years
ago on the railroad; God he’s a
relic, been beaten into the ground
under that desert sun for years after
I left, looks like, and he says loud
enough for Bob and everyone to hear,
“This guy here, he worked hard,
so hard, harder than the rest of us,
strong, strong as a horse if
a horse was dumb enough to pound
spikes into the world all day.”
And the evening goes on the same
after that, maybe illuminated just
a little under the thinnest lightness
of glory.
- Casey Killingsworth
