All of the rules, including the one
about fighting it with itself. What nonsense.
A fight with oneself is that rare thing:
a zero-sum game. Lose to win. I walked
once on a sheet of unforgiving ice,
each limb flailing in turn as if to spell
out an SOS without benefit
of my ever having learned semaphore.
No farther than to a mailbox sheathed
in the reflected light of an empty day,
and still I barely made it. And all because
of what I had seen in my morning glass.
Lucas Jacob is the author of the full-length collection The Seed Vault (Eyewear Publishing, 2019) and the chapbooks A Hole in the Light (Anchor & Plume Press, 2015) and Wishes Wished Just Hard Enough (Seven Kitchens Press, forthcoming 2019). His poetry and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including Southwest Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Hopkins Review, and RHINO. He is an Indianapolis-based high school teacher whose career has brought him many wonderful things, including the honor of serving as a Fulbright Fellow in Budapest, Hungary.