Lou Lipsitz

• Have a nice day. Have a memorable day.
• Have (however unlikely) a life-changing day.
• Have a day of soaking rain and lightning.
• Have a confused day thinking about fate.

• Have a day of wholes.
• Have a day of poorly marked,
• unrecognizable wholes you
• cannot fathom.
• Have a ferocious day, a bleak
• unbearable day. Have a
• riotously unproductive day;
• a grim jaw-clenched, Clint Eastwood vengeful
• law enforcement day.
• Have a day of raging, hair-yanking
• jealousy and meanness. Have a day
• of almost grasping
• how whole you are; a finely tuned,
• empty day.

• Have a nice day of walking and circling;
• a day of stalking and hunting,
• of planting strange seeds and wandering in the woods.
• Have a day of endearing nonsense,
• of hopelessly combing your hair,
• a day of yielding, of swallowing
• hard, breathing more deeply,
• a day of fondness for beetles
• and macabre spectacles, of irreverence
• about anything you want, of just
• sitting and wondering.
• Have a day of wondering if it’s
• going to help, or if it just doesn’t matter;
• a day of dark winds
• and torrents flowing through the valley,
• of diving into cool water
• and gasping for breath,
• a day of sudden hunger for communion.

• Have a day when the crusts you each
• were given are lost and you stumble
• with your fellows
• searching endlessly together.

Lou Lipsitz was born in Brooklyn in 1938 and was for many years a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina, where he taught democratic theory and political psychology. He is currently a psychotherapist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with a focus on men’s issues. “Have a Day” is from his 2011 collection if this world falls apart, which won the 2010 Blue Lynx Prize and is published by Lynx House Press. It is used with permission.