Poetry
Monetized Happiness
Keith Gaboury
Overlooking unhoused hearts
in a tent encampment,
an East Oakland billboard
commands my eyes:
YOU CAN’T BUY HAPPINESS.
Alright, I get it. Then again,
can vocal chords vocalize
negotiable happiness?
Can we negotiate
a pay-what-you-can happiness
or better yet
a we-need-to-give-a-fuck happiness.
I know I’m Oakland lucky.
I have green
presidents in my pocket
and a lock
on my 38th Ave. door.
When I drop my skin-wrapped
blood onto a $500 mattress
under a $50 blanket
in a square studio
that costs $55 every night,
I dream about burning that billboard
down. A neurological fire
will warm my housed blood cells
in this zip code
branded a vegetable desert.
Can I buy a sunny 10-cent carrot
or a joyful $1.50 radish bunch
in my neighborhood
heavy with melanin.
USPS doesn’t bother to plant
a dark blue mailbox around here,
doesn’t care if I mail a 60-cent
envelope of happiness.
I wake up and hear
gentrification seeks to swipe away
that tent encampment
for a grocery utopia
where health and happiness
will be available for purchase
at the checkout counter.
in a tent encampment,
an East Oakland billboard
commands my eyes:
YOU CAN’T BUY HAPPINESS.
Alright, I get it. Then again,
can vocal chords vocalize
negotiable happiness?
Can we negotiate
a pay-what-you-can happiness
or better yet
a we-need-to-give-a-fuck happiness.
I know I’m Oakland lucky.
I have green
presidents in my pocket
and a lock
on my 38th Ave. door.
When I drop my skin-wrapped
blood onto a $500 mattress
under a $50 blanket
in a square studio
that costs $55 every night,
I dream about burning that billboard
down. A neurological fire
will warm my housed blood cells
in this zip code
branded a vegetable desert.
Can I buy a sunny 10-cent carrot
or a joyful $1.50 radish bunch
in my neighborhood
heavy with melanin.
USPS doesn’t bother to plant
a dark blue mailbox around here,
doesn’t care if I mail a 60-cent
envelope of happiness.
I wake up and hear
gentrification seeks to swipe away
that tent encampment
for a grocery utopia
where health and happiness
will be available for purchase
at the checkout counter.
|
Keith Mark Gaboury earned a M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College. He has full-length poetry collections forthcoming from Kelsay Books and Falkenberg Press. Keith is also the president of the Berkeley Branch of the California Writers Club. Learn more at keithmgaboury.com.
|
