Charles Brand

Burden of Plenty
 
She's out there
all alone,
her finish glossy,
fuming acetone. 

She's out there,
statistically —
not average,
but mean.

She's out there,
erudite,
tofu in tow,
leaning on
May and Chödrön,
digesting neither.

She's out there,
ears ringing,
heart bleeding,
an answering machine
from the corporate cloister.

She's out there
doing good,
tabulating countless ills, 
hers offset
in beads and pastels.

She's out there 
and exoteric —
more manic than mantic,
with prominence
scaled down from peak.

She's out there
all alone,
going through things
we’re all going through.

Charles Brand is a certified educator of incarcerated and at-risk youth in Florida. Holding a graduate degree in history, he is motivated to blend formal and informal skills in creative writing to attract and satisfy readers with compelling wordplay. Charles’s poems have been included in Discretionary Love and Rue Scribe.