Let Him Those Small Pleasures

by Luke Otley

Let him eat,
let each sixty cent slice

of pizza be celebrated
as if a treasure, and

let him drink,
wine at a dollar a litre, and

let him laugh,
loud and unabashedly toothless;

let life’s edges
be blunted for just these nights

that forge onwards
like locomotive through snow,

fifteen years
homelessness, starvation, abuse

trailing behind
like great clots of steam against the sky.

Let him those small pleasures,
at least.