Small Pleasures

Small Pleasures

Some nights, the ache in your chest

for all that’s wrong in your life,

for all the cruelty of this world,

will wake you with its crackling

bonfire of fears. But other nights,

you will fall asleep to the scent

of peonies left breathing in a vase

on the dresser, that bouquet of burst-

open hearts the last thing you see

before closing your eyes. You …