Obscure Melancholia

There is no rain nor virulent
sun. The breeze is gentle
and the air safe for breathing.
In the garden: a bounty
of green beans, basil.
No one we know has spoken
harshly, impatient
to be gone, thinking of else-
where. Sometimes, she’d stop
and say that somewhere
something had happened
and woe. Take to a darkened
room and lie on her side
with unknown despondency
for an hour, or a day.
Sweetened tea did no good.
Later, she would walk the lawn
with purpose gathering sticks
after a storm, sing
some show tune down
the long hall as greeting.

Outside the window: people amble
in perceptibly cheerful ways.

What We Try and Wrap Our Heads Around

Not all the chocolate can be the greenest
and the cleanest. The scientist says, now,
that in effect, the scenarios are becoming
less pessimistic but also less optimistic. Some-
one is lying. Someone is leaning into
nuance. I try and parse it out. I eat
my leafy greens and fatty fish. I keep to
a sleep schedule, but I can’t make heads
or tails, sometimes. Sometimes, I give up
and forgo the hat that never fully covers
all of my face anyway and go in search
of interesting cloud formations.
I think on how, out on that one road
with the ranch grasses bleached straw,
the sun and clouds worked at shadows
moving at a fair clip. We could have been
underwater, ships passing overhead. Or:
just on that one road with the ranch grasses
bleached straw. Not another car.
Only a few cattle far from any water
we could see. And the tumbleweeds
scuttling across the gravel. You kept slowing
down, mistaking them for an animal—
something quick and averse to straight
trajectories. We were fully in the SOS zone.
I couldn’t read up on the latest news
that had been revised. I needn’t adjust
my expectations for the eventual end.

Failing Randomly & Gradually

Quick I could do, if I so
chose, though more
so this as often, as many.
I stumbled around
the rink, clutching
the walls while she sailed
past, calling baby.
Later: complex math
equations, complicated
braids. The two of them
fought to the point
I could not decipher
the neutral face. Saw
anger. Read frustration.
Foretold despair
when at rest.
It’s been going on
for years: this spectacular
failing in little, measured
ways. Have pity.

Kelly R. Samuels is the author of two poetry collections and six chapbooks—the most recent Oblivescence, a finalist for the Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award (Red Sweater Press, 2024), and Sisi: Re: (Whittle Micro-Press, 2026.) She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee with work appearing or forthcoming in Blue Earth Review, Denver Quarterly, Laurel Review, Poetry Northwest, and The Glacier.