Addiction as Ecotone - Part 17 - Kathleen Flenniken

THE MAN WHO PLAYED TOO MUCH TETRIS - Kathleen Flenniken
______________________________________

It wasn’t just the way he ate his toast
..................................................................changed lanes

or squeezed between
two women
on the elevator

He looked too often toward the sky
........................................................and talked too much

with his hands

At meetings
.......................the space between executive heads

...............................................................................asked to be filled

with the world

caving in

At lunch
.......................birds swooped down
...........................................................on his crumbs

the way he’d trained them

He was a doomsday prophet

He was up to his eyeballs

.......................................flooded

...................................................with everything fallen

....................................................................................or falling

and try as he might
he couldn’t
find space
for it
all

It made him sad

when the women stepped away

___________
Kathleen Flenniken's poems have appeared in Poetry, The Iowa Review, The Southern Review, Mid-American Review, Farm Pulp, Prairie Schooner, and Poetry Daily. She is the recipient of a 2005 Literary Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a 2003 Literary Fellowship from Artist Trust, along with grants from Artist Trust and Seattle Office of Arts and Culture. Her first collection of poems, Famous, winner of the 2005 Prairie Schooner Prize, was released by University of Nebraska Press in 2006, and has been named a Notable Book of the Year by the American Library Association (ALA)