Ephemeral Joy

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Transient delight often derives from MacGuffins, those chocolates bought

On impulse, the sweater on sale, those flower bulbs to be stored until spring.

The aims of our entrenched institutions frequently coincide with bombastic desires.

Truly pompous persons, their turgidity ever pernicious, place vanity before benevolence.

Mopes, contrariwise, wearing melancholy like an untimely shroud, gather round

All manner of gloom, dejection, dreariness, else sadness and her sisters.

Small children, alone, seem capable of shiny things’ representativeness,

Of butterfly wings, kitten kisses, also dandelion fluff exultations.

KJ Hannah Greenberg is eclectic. She’s played oboe, participated in martial arts, learned basket weaving, and studied Middle Eastern dancing. What’s more, she’s a certified herbalist, and an AP College Board-authorized teacher of calculus.

Her creative efforts have been nominated once for The Best of the Net in poetry, once for The Best of the Net in art, three times for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for poetry, once for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for fiction, once for the Million Writers Award for fiction, and once for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. To boot, Hannah’s had more than forty-five books published and has served as an editor for several literary journals.

Check out her latest short fiction collection, An Orbit of Chairs:

https://www.amazon.com/Orbit-Chairs-KJ-Hannah-Greenberg/dp/B0CWMMM73T

 Within its pages are two tales originally published at Yellow Mama: "Alive Another Day" and "Light Notes."