Tips and Tricks (ST)

One easy way to lose weight
is to fall in love with someone
who is already in love
with someone else. Then,
when you’re about to eat dinner,
think about that. It’s like magic
without the magic!

What Poems Can Be (ST)

They can be as fiery and epic and maddeningly beautiful as Erin Belieu’s “In the Red Dress I Wear to Your Funeral,” available at the wonderful online magazine At Length, or as goofy and touching and confused and sad as Bob Hicok’s “The History of Origami.” There are also any number of other things they can be like, which: thank goodness.

New Poem (ST)

Honey I love you but I’m turning inside out.
I want earthquakes that alter my topography,
fresh-ripped coastlines, volcanoes charging from the sea
like the football player throwing a Hail Mary pass
in one perfect arc in the film I would like to be real life.
I want to meet a dragon. I want change for a dollar.
I want to eat a habanero pepper
stuffed with habanero peppers. I want to drip spleens
and kidneys all over the kitchen floor right now
and say that I will clean it up tomorrow!

The Animal Psychic Speaks (ST)

The Animal Psychic Speaks

The hawk says, “I’m hungry! Where’s that mouse?”
The pig says, “Pardon me, I have the hiccups.”
The possum is thinking about intersections and her next of kin.
The anteater prefers gumdrops, but feels too shy to say so.
Those Japanese beetles see plenty of holes in the leaves’ argument.
When the stallion runs, he forgets where he comes from.
Today is your luckiest day: This rattlesnake’s on your side.

Landline (ST)

Landline

Phil padded into the living room to ask Evie what she wanted for dinner that night. She had been on hold with the cell phone company for a quarter of an hour, which was really eating into her minutes. “My heart,” she said, sliding from the couch to the floor. “On a slice of buttered brown bread.”

“We’re all out of bread,” Phil said. Evie remembered that she could not live without him.

Holding Their Tongues (ST)

Holding Their Tongues

“I’m worried the best thing about me
is what I don’t say,” Becky told her mom,
“and nobody will ever know it.
I feel like a root vegetable
with the greens snipped off
and what’s worse,
that’s my damn kimono
you’re wearing.” It was true
about the kimono, but
Ella was only trying to distract her child
from the harrows of introspection.

Pop Quiz (ST)

Pop Quiz

Can you tell a lot about a person from the types of sandwiches they’ve invented?
Have you ever been a fan of Nine Inch Nails?
Would you say you occupy a kind of Texas of the mind?
How many rare diseases do you believe may linger undiagnosed
and alive in your bloodstream?
Are you weary of slogans, even those you agree with?
Do you feel that you have enough opinions? Do you hold others to their word?

Name Game (ST)

Name Game

People often say What’s in a name
but nobody ever said that to Dandruff Sofa.
He longed to hear it.
He knew the chances of meeting a nice girl
named Walrus were slim,

Master Cleanse (ST)

Master Cleanse

Abigail’s new friends were pretty into flushing the toxins out of their systems.
They were passionate about wheatgrass
and three-day juice fasts.
Was this what bound them together?
Abigail tried a juice fast
just to be polite, but it made her feel
like a space cloud,  all roiling dust.

Magic Show (ST)

WordPress won’t let me do the right formatting. Imagine tabs!

Magic Show

For my next act I will disappear, my best friend says
but that’s one trick everybody knows.