"Debts And Carrots" by Kenton K. Yee

 I resisted form: drove a mile at 3 am
 to Safeway for one carrot,
 bought cheese instead. The cashier asked
 how I was, as if I were fine.
 Back in the office, shuffling numbers
 that wouldn’t add up, I dozed off
 on a raft hitched to three big mouth trout
 that wouldn’t swim, like I couldn’t swim,
 so of course my grip slipped and I’m back
 to snack wraps that were black cat bad.
 Accounting taught me people don’t count.
 I remember a riverbed too replete to sleep on,
 a big mouth trout picked clean, and three
 clouds looking like a flock of unshorn sheep.

Kenton K. Yee’s recent poems appear (or will soon) in Plume Poetry, Threepenny Review, TAB Journal, I-70 Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Terrain.org, Mantis, Sugar House Review, Constellations, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Rattle, among others. Kenton holds a PhD from UCLA and law and business degrees from Stanford. He writes from Northern California.