Noah Berlatsky

50 Miles of Elbow Room

I’m a suburban dad and the divorce

is fertilizing the lawn like worms.

We will divide the 2.5 worms

and send them to school

to better learn to love the lawn,

brown and friable, drifting

slowly towards Princeton.

Good jobs cluster ahead

good jobs cluster behind.

Some day I will go jogging around

suburban dads. I will languish

in cul-de-sacs made of grass clippings

in my lungs. Crawl in the earth

after each breath, crawl for air.

The sprinklers ascend like a great swan

flying up my nose, singing

its dark swan song. I will watch

the Simpsons and listen

to the closet space expand.

I really do want more closet space though.

That’s no joke.

Noah Berlatsky (he/him) lives in Chicago. He’s published poems in the Chicago Review, the Toast, Five Fleas, and numerous other venues. He won an Honorable Mention in the 2022 Wergle Flomp humor poetry contest, and has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, among them: No Devotions (LJMcD Communications), Send $19.99 for Supplements and Freedom (above/ground) and It’s Fab (Origamic Poems). He tweets too much at @nberlat and scribbles longer at Everything is Horrible! https://noahberlatsky.substack.com/