An Injunction on Joy

A Poem by Philip Costea

I seek joy not as a compensation for lack of humor
or a sense of it
but as a necessity of fulfillment

I hear my son laugh sometimes with the deepest sense of committed
nonchalance
and it beckons a reminder of what carefreedom was

carefreedom must have been young when it lost itself as well
because if it ever aged, it would be a curmudgeon at the end of a long
bar
in purgatory
filing its nails
chewing on the butt of resentment