Vanitas

Anthony Hammill

October 2023

“Wishes and Prayers are the way

 that we leave the lonely alone and push

the wounded away”

-John K. Samson

Say one day you walk along a street,

littered with sparkling sidewalks, 

bright displays telling you where you should spend

your most recent paycheck.

Your partner is smiling at you through their

winning smile that sold you over to them in the first place,

and your son races up to the window, to secure his place

for his first time window shopping: “Next time, son.”

Do you continue?

Say one day you’re watching TV,

magnificent displays of violence, sex, and war conflicts,

things to drive your attention,

as if you were the bear and they were the honey.

And one particular type of honey whispers, calls your name,

tells you of an impending economic disaster, 

but before you get to taste it, cuts away to

“the Jets lost, but here’s tonight's weather!”

Do you still want to pursue it?

Say one evening, you’re coming home,

but with a weight of a thousand kilograms on you,

of the demands from upper management giving you no virtue.

What do you say? How do you face them when

it comes time to say “money’s a little tight”

“Income is cut off, I’ll find a new job”

And when you go back to that sidewalk, with that window,

and your son says “What happened to Next Time?”,

Do you know what to do?

Say one day, or night, you don’t quite remember (it doesn’t seem to matter much),

the alcohol makes you forget what it’s like

to feel okay, to be well, to have faith

You get a letter in the mail reminding you of

your failed marriage, and lawyer fees took the

last of what you had, hope, home, love.

So you go to the alley next to the window,

introduce yourself, make your bed on a cheap newspaper.

Do you think you’ll get through?

Say at a point in time (it’s a blur now, anyway),

you’re standing on a street corner, with a tin can,

rattling, begs, sneers, and jeers, you fail to discern one from the other.

Your “God Bless” cardboard sign was torn up,

and the cops pepper sprayed you to protect and serve

the property value of the Salvation Army charity front.

So you go home, or lack thereof, to the cardboard bed,

all along the way back parents shielded their kids from you.

Do you still feel like a member of society?

Say that in the end of it all (do you know what it’s like to be well?),

the bear comes back to you, and this time,

they’ve got an especially large empty mason jar.

You find yourself sticky, hard to mutter, as the jar is

shoved into your face, and you recall

back to when you condescended upon those in the alley

when you still had a home, a future, a life to live.

When you’ve realized you became the honey,

“Pitiful Irony”, you thought, as you no longer felt alive.