The Challenge

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If the modern man can get through today, this one day

without killing anything

without picking that ant

off his pants

gently rolling it between his giant fingers

like a booger.

 

The modern woman holds a sharp knife

definitively

and asks how sharp

enough to cut her own flesh

down to the bone

apparently.

 

We all stretch out our arms

to grab two rope ends:

sustainability and self-murder

pull they and/or us pull

until we let them both go, go

let the ant crush us

become the sharp knife

give up the challenge.

 

E. Martin Pedersen, originally from San Francisco, has lived for over 40 years in eastern Sicily, where he taught English at the local university. His poetry appeared most recently in Adirondack Review, Better Than Starbucks, Brief Wilderness, Danse Macabre, Thirteen Myna Birds. Martin is an alumnus of the Community of Writers. He has published two collections of haiku, Bitter Pills and Smart Pills, and a chapbook, Exile’s Choice, just out from Kelsay Books. A full collection, Method & Madness, is forthcoming from Odyssey Press.

 

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