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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Author: Mary Waterfield

Ennui

A distraction,
everything a distraction,
in the shallowness of my heart.
Ennui,
a window’s reflection.
Sadness bored with itself.
Joy with frayed edges.
Overripe fruit.
The smell of old sausage.
Mildew on the cheese,
jejune people.

Then,
arriving in the car,
two thunderbolts.
Jackie twinkles like a flare,
a meteor about to fly.
Michael is a bird,
filling a whole valley
with his call,
and I am restored to joy,
to hope,
to catching butterflies
in a net,
finding bugs under rocks,
rescuing mountain goats
off a table.

Peeing,
running,
telling stories,
and feeding off the bounty
of the earth.
And light so fresh
it flashes into stars,
and ennui evaporates into air.