Pharmacology by Mark Jackley

I’m waiting for the pill whose pharmacological purpose
is to flood me warmly with the capillary wisdom
to pull my Honda off the road as the Rolling Stones spit out
"Can’t You Hear Me Knocking," and the clarity not to care
if I’m awake or dreaming courses through my bloodstream
as I watch some ducklings wobble through a sunlit garden,
past the beans and turnips, veering towards the pumpkins,
still green but thinking it over, taking their time and who can blame them
in their only summer, vines bowing earthward, prayerfully
towards the dirt, going beautifully nowhere.


Mark Jackley is a poet who lives in northwestern Virginia. His poems have appeared in Fifth Wednesday, Talking River, The Cape Rock, and elsewhere.