Maui Wowie by Howie Good

Grass smells funky, just like it did when I was young
and cool and my use of it was nonmedicinal, but now,

given my accelerated rate of decay, the aftereffect
of cancer treatment, it lifts me out of my broken body,

like a mother lifts a howling red-faced baby out of a crib,
gently, and fills me with distance and strangeness and

light that has traveled thousands of years to be here.



Howie Good's latest poetry collection, True Crime, is scheduled to be published by Sacred Parasite in early 2026.