Arrival of Destination

From a skinny girl glimpsed
through a fog of dingy college bar
she closes in and clarifies
grows into subject and object
of all his senses
forsakes, with him, imagination
for the marriage of minds
the making of Home with bare hands
the animal work of bodies
the daunting sobriety
of giving lives over
to the service of happiness

Dan Carpenter is a freelance journalist, poet, fiction writer, essayist and blogger, residing in Indianapolis, and has published poems, stories, and essays in Laurel Review, Poetry East, Illuminations, Pearl, Xavier Review, and many other journals and anthologies. Dan has also published two books of poems, The Art He’d Sell for Love (Cherry Grove, 2015) and More Than I Could See (Restoration, 2009), and two books of non-fiction.