The Blue Moon Review

Lay My Burden Down
by Aaron Anstett

Anstett, scofflaw, drives valid licenseless
through the rural mis en scene, sun
relentlessly at some extremity of its daylong sweep.
With encyclopedic command of penny ante illegality,
Anstett, criminally jockeying his standard transmission
one mile an hour under posted limits,
goes uncaught, to and from his latest stint.
Oh, he rakes it in in the world perpetual elegy
for each prior instant.  Anstett has convictions 
it all ends in tears.  Ask him as he jaunts hungover by
a cow struggling to stand on sheet ice in a pasture,
legs ridiculously splayed and stunningly unperpindicular.
He knows where the damage that used to be animals
has been done by all things vehicular.
When he gets to work, he starts drafting memoranda.
What does Anstett  wear
through all this illicitness, motion, and grief?
Wingtips, shirt, and tie, but Fridays it's office casual.