Praiseworthy
John Glowney

Getting out of bed is a tiny act
of courage that earns a ribbon,
somewhere, a Foreign Legion outpost
with its drunk commander,
his ramrod-straight posture,
his excessive saluting.
Even though your thoughts
won’t hold still, laundry pegged
to a clothes-line on a sunny
windy day, you get through the morning
one step at a time, a kid
in her daddy’s giant work boots
crossing the kitchen linoleum.
And every night your heart
sneaks out, showing off
all of its tin-pot dictator medals,
exaggerating its limp.

John Glowney is a graduate of the University of Michigan. John’s poems have appeared in New Ohio Review, The Bitter Oleander, North American Review, Shenandoah, 32 Poems, Iron Horse, Juxtaprose, Tar River Poetry, The American Journal of Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, The Baltimore Review, The Cider Press Review, and Poetry Northwest, among others. John’s full-length poetry collection, Visitation, is being released by Broadstone Books in March 2022.