Seasonal Affective Disorder
       

Many tragic things can happen to a squirrel.
Like Thoreau, I've detailed them all in my journal:

Coyote and golf ball attacks, sudden-onset
Lead poisoning, anaphylactic shock, et cetera.

My tally is a tiny monument without a flag.
Or so I wrote to a couple of nature mags.

Must one face a death at the psychiatrist's?
She's there to talk to and witness

One cry on standby once a week.
Twice, if one tampers with the background ink

On the script. But to hell with pills. Friends,
Send down your scat and acorns

On my head. I can take the gravity after all—
Without it, the tears might never fall.

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Copyright © 2019 Mark Yakich All rights reserved
from Spiritual Exercises
Penguin Random House
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission