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Michael Todd Steffen curates the Hastings Room Reading Series in Cambridge. His poetry and articles have appeared in The Boston Globe, Connecticut Review, Poem (HLA), ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), Ibbetson Street, Taos Journal and in the window of the Grolier Poetry Bookshop. His first book, Partner, Orchard, Day Moon, was published in April of 2014 by Cervena Barva Press, edited by Gloria Mindock.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Michael Todd Steffen

It might just come true
with all the vengeance
luck dimly expects
in return for our presumption
to meditate on having something other
than what we already have.

The lover of dark desire
with his teeth in your neck.
The car on the commercial
with its insurance rate.

Not to mention the pillowy feeling
in the gut when we get our way
loading with influence the whispered wish,

the penniless dreamer’s horse,

the orphan’s first star.

— Michael Todd Steffen

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