The Lottery Ticket

by Janet Buck

My amputation
painted your life
in ways I've never
understood.
A father bleeding
on a page
he had to--mad to--
sad did--hide.
Dodging bees
by pouring beer.
Accidents
of frail does
in ditches with
each step I limp.
Thorns as quiet
as fresh snow
draw blood beneath
a poem's lines.
I measured the
space and the
length of the crawl
by stop signs
of your worried eyes.


When tragedy
defies erasure.
Heavy hammered
silence reeks,
controls my squeaky
tennis shoes,
metal joints,
and domes of try.
Religion was
and is, will always be,
connected to
approval's prayer.
I will move
until I win
the ticket to
its lottery.

Janet teaches writing and literature at the college level. Her poetry and poetics have appeared in The Melic Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Kimera, 2River View, Tintern Abbey, Southern Ocean Review, The Horsethief's Journal and hundreds of journals world-wide. In 1998 and 1999, she has received numerous creative writing awards and been a featured poet for Seeker Magazine, Poetry Today Online, Vortex, Conspire, Poetry Cafe, Dead Letters, the storyteller, Poetry Heaven, Athens City Times, Poetik License, 3:00 AM e-zine, Poetry Super Highway, and Carved in Sand. Newton's Baby Press is soon to publish her first print collection entitled Calamity's Quilt. Janet is one of ten artists to be featured at the "One Heart, One World" Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000. The tour will travel to four countries.