A Losing Game by Howie Good

You should invest in failing, invest in losing, move around like a fish, searching for possibilities. You should create a room to get lost in, a room with what is billed as “the worst view in the world.” Do you see the donut? Do you just see the hole? But if you see the hole, then where is Mary? The problem is too many people. I see a lot of them every day. People no longer know how to talk to each other. They snarl at each other. It’s scary, isn’t it? And it’s messy. There’s a lot of hot, sweaty people here. The person you love will be somewhere, maybe questioning things, or seeing your face in a cloud, or getting evacuated with all the others just ahead of the storm.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of The Loser’s Guide to Street Fighting, winner of the 2017 Lorien Prize for Poetry from Thoughtcrime Press, and Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.