4/22/25: terms of victory

 Today's prompt  (I think I've run afoul of it, but this is what came from it) and a poem from Kimiko Hahn. 

i would say the following: each day
is another victory/we can stack them too-
these victories don't build up in the blood/soluble like vitamin-c-held fast to our chest, hoarded for a day when devouring just one will not suffice/
bet you can eat just one-sometimes
victory has a sharp, oniony taste to it/sometimes a bitter
palliative-necessary suffering/all iron in the back of the
throat and the throbbing of the space behind the eyes,
pain in bloom, this spring into summer, into week-long fall-
to second summer-to a middling winter/these victories

set aside for the thieves, the scavengers, the hangers-on/
let them eat their fill as well/more than enough for everyone
when we set our brains together, even in the half-light of another
hungover wednesday or,
the siren song of a thursday after the lunch break/calling out to
us-we are all reaching, aren't we? all demanding. we are all teeth-
gnashing, tearing, pulverizing-
taking what is ours-sharing in the communion and the miracle
of another success story. the prism shines another dimension
on a fact well-established/i and you are "we and us" and "we"
and "us" are standing in "our" collection of successes.

raise our collective hands/sing out merriment/enough/

only when we have our fill