TRAVEL-SIZED MAP TO THE ANTIDOTE FOR MISERY
To get there, find an old abandoned sandbox
with C+L4EVR carved into the NNE plane
of its chipped frame. Plant your knees down
into the grit and dig dig
until your
finger pads bleed.
Fingertips.
The air turns to pink gossamer spun
from the sound of Neptune’s rings.
Two squirrels squawk and chase each other up
and down the telephone pole that you are unsure was there before
until it tips but does not
fall.
Slowly slowly
your knees will disappear and your fingers will be grated to knuckle
and somehow before you know
it what you knew
melts down down
into the grass and you will see a little blue-gray fuzzball
who just three days earlier
dozed under your breast
and you will erupt in tears at the loss but keep
digging. No more elbows and no more femurs,
mince everything all the way to the quick, gored
into carmine mud.
Destination:
the merciful unfolding of the cerebrum.
Kelli Charland (she/her) attends SUNY Plattsburgh for English literature and creative writing. She has worked as the copy editor for North Star, SUNY Plattsburgh’s student-run literary magazine, and as an editorial assistant and social media manager for Saranac Review. One of her essays appears on Saranac Review’s blog. She was awarded 1st place for the Robert Frost Memorial Poetry Prize in May 2024 for her poem, “A letter to my amygdala.”