No One Wants Anything to Get Better. By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

I’ll let you in on the secret of secrets,

no one wants anything to get better

and the more people that die, the better.

They will never tell you this.

Not in the papers and not in person.

You will only read it here because I am honest and wholly unattached.

A free agent left to dredge the waiting riverbeds.

They will pray and hold vigil and shed crocodile tears on camera 

because that is what they are supposed to do.

Others that want that very same death and destruction 

will affirm such a common empathy.

Probably invoke the will of some mysterious god

with a super church large enough to host the next Super Bowl.

Congregating later at a popular steakhouse

for something rare and bloody.

Something pink and seasoned

they can throw into the hungry mouth 

at the end of an eventful day.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly,The Rye Whiskey Review, Outlaw Poetry Network, Under The Bleachers, The Dope Fiend Daily and In Between Hangovers.