thank me with piles of money

for begging

when you want to

but fear the lash of consequence.

And before you ask,

yes—

I have been a table scrap

and I have felt the smallest feeling

it is possible to feel.

I walked up the side of a mountain

in the Maghreb,

I heard the music of the steel bridge

in rusted America.

When I beg these waiting crowds

to drop pale feathers in my bucket,

I am doing something noble.

Maxwell Norman is an American writer living in Morocco. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Stimulant, the Michigan City Review of Books, Plague Circus, and the Better Argument. Follow him on Instagram @normalfriendlymax or check out his Substack HAPPY FUNLAND if you want to feel closer.