Montana Woman

I didn’t know you were dying until I saw what your grown daughter posted on Facebook under your name. For a minute, I wondered if I should “Like” the post as a way to convey my sympathy. Probably not, right? It was the sort of dilemma that once would have had you shaking your head in amused despair at me. Your daughter says that now you mostly just sleep. Where I am, some 1,900 miles from you, yellow daisy-like flowers that shut at night as though sleeping or even dead open at the touch of morning, bodies exploding from coffins.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of more than a dozen poetry collections, including most recently Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing).

Kite Prisons

The state of Montana, hoping to profit on the nation's overcrowding problems, built the first kite prisons in 2036. They tied the prisoners to the backs of kites and let the wind take them hundreds of feet in the air. They saved millions on construction and maintenance costs. All you needed was a few old men who made sure no one came along and cut the strings.

The congressional hearings began in 2051, when it was discovered that the Montana DOC was allowing prisoners to starve to death rather than feed them.

Leave it to the liberals to ruin a good thing.