"Morning Choices" by Samantha Fortenberry

Bob Ross and You


After so many evergreens scratched into mountains,
you might be curious, want to see him wail onto canvas
some shameful vestige of his Air Force days
loud enough to shake the joint from your fingers,
transport you to some dingy bathroom where he is
hounding you to clean the latrine. But he won’t do it,
insisting instead on some lesser sharpness,
twin peaks blending into a clutter of happy little trees.
You take a toke, deflating, and watch him just beat the devil
out of that two-inch brush. A stream bubbles to life,
the current hurtling it out towards the mist. A little detail,
he coos, is just enough. No need for the assaulting
sharpness of the flowering brush. He leaves
the foreground unobscured, as if inviting you
to round the river bend with him, feel as if,
for a moment, it can be that way forever.

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KAT GIORDANO grew up in Philadelphia and currently studies creative writing in Erie, PA. Her work appears in Menacing Hedge, and she is the poetry editor for the journal Lake Effect.

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SAMANTHA FORTENBERRY is a photographer from a small town in Northern Alabama. She currently studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. Ever since high school she's taken a passion to photography and photographs various subjects from surreal landscapes to fine art nudes and everything in between. Website: samanthafortenberry.com