A Prescription For Anxiety by Katherine Matiko

Poem title: A Prescription For Anxiety Poet name: Katherine Matiko Poem: First—and do this late in the evening— make jelly (follow package directions carefully) pouring the concoction— and all perceived personal failures —into shallow glass jars. Make one jar ruby for a shattered worn out heart, and another jar cerulean for heaving broken lungs, and another clear as diamonds —an amulet of protection against a cloudy, contrary brain. Add splashes of slow and painful, sudden and unfinished, deathbed drama, or alone and unloved. Take your pick. Put the jars into the refrigerator and go to sleep (fitfully if you must.) Very early in the morning walk in dew to a willow tree (willows are best because —when burdened— they simply let go twigs) and place the jelly jars in its branches. (If you wish, dance briefly beneath the tree, lithe or lumbering, it’s all the same.) Go back inside, make tea and watch orioles whisk the jelly away— fleeting jewels in the brooding sun-flicked sky. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Katherine Matiko Katherine Matiko is a writer living in the Alberta foothills, where she finds daily inspiration for poetry. In 2022, her work appeared in (M)othering: an anthology (Inanna Publications) and Wild Roof Journal.