Watching Bob Ross on Netflix, I think, trees have it easy, content on water and earth to exist, simple, as a praying mantis bleached from molting,
bathing in the bullion of a streetlamp in an employee parking lot minutes after a California
10pm, in an aisle’s exact middle,
halting, if for a shortened moment, a conversation with a coworker, as I lower myself to admire its assuming
pose, simple in the night’s silence, as an artichoke, its heart carved into a bowl, with olive oil and feta,
from the barbed scales that mask it.
Jacob Minasian received his MFA from Saint Mary’s College of California, where he was the 2016 Academy of American Poets University and College Poetry Prize winner. He is the author of the chapbook, American Lit (Finishing Line Press), and his work has appeared in publications including Poets.org, Museum of Americana, RipRap Literary Journal, and Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California by Scarlett Tanager Books, among others. Originally from California, he currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he teaches at Cincinnati State. Twitter: @JakeMinasian