Auntie Depressant Poem by Sonny Rainshine

[Whenever she saw me feeling
a bit under the weather or blue
a long-dead aunt of mine used
to offer the following remedy]:

Recollect the perfect moment
in your life. [YOUR life, not someone else’s,
and not the IDEA of a perfect moment—
you’re not Plato, after all.]

Do it!

It has to be true
and it has to be you.

Well….
I’m waiting….

Here’s some music to help you think:

“I wish I wuz an apple,
a hangin’ on a tree;
an’ every time my sweetheart passed,
she’d take a bite of me.”

Thank you very much.

Got it yet? Good.
Now, contemplate this event
with no regrets and no nostalgia.
Just the tenderest memory.

Now, don’t you feel better?
A little?