Forgive Everyone Everything

The boney fox that killed
your favorite chicken
and dragged it to its den
where a litter of mouths nipped
and fed and fed.
Forgive the mosquito 
for being a mosquito at
dusk after heavy rains.
Even the asshole
swerving his jacked-up truck
while he thumbs his phone,
a bumper sticker that reads
No Air Bags, We Die Like
Real Men slapped on his tail gate
just like his father used to do
to his mom.
Baby boomers, the 80s,
especially yourself back when.
Forgive us the day 
so that we might be always arriving —
a worry no heavier
than a loose shirt.

CASEY KNOTT

Casey Knott is the author of Ground Work (Main Street Rag, 2018). She is the poetry editor for The Wax Paper literary journal, and her work has appeared most recently in Gulf Stream, Storm Cellar, december, Cold Mountain Review, The New Territory, The Meadow, Cimarron Review, Sugar House Review, and Rumble Fish Quarterly.