MAYDAY

Poem That Takes Place in a Human Hand
by Glen Armstrong

Contributed By: ,

Black and white. Blurred dots in the background. Blindfolded man walking towards the left, man embracing woman in center, Creation of Adam -esque God in top right corner.
Points West by Howie Good

The air is very cold.
Do you want to continue?

My sweetheart wonders aloud
why it’s always the fourth wall

that breaks:
What if the story takes place

in something with a less-
than-regular form?

Maybe the most direct path
to the audience

is through the seventh wall.
What if the story

takes place in a human hand?
The Greek chorus blows about

like leaves in a morning breeze.
The kiss that would end

this disaster
never takes place,

so my sweetheart steps back
in to deliver

a lengthy footnote
on the prepositional phrase

“in the raw.”

GLEN ARMSTRONG (he/him) holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters. His latest book is Night School: Selected Early Poems.

HOWIE GOOD‘s newest book is Frowny Face, a collection of prose poems and collages from Redhawk Publications. He co-edits the online journal UnLost, dedicated to found poetry.

Further Reading

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The Only Thing Missing Was the Howling of Wolves
by Rachel Swearingen

The following is excerpted from Rachel Swearingen’s debut story collection, How to Walk on Water. Her stories and essays fiction have appeared in VICE, Agni, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. A recipient of the 2018 New American Fiction Prize, Swearingen has also won the 2015 Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize in Fiction and […]

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I’m on the back of the ferry in the Adriatic Sea I’m on my back in a gondola on the East River My captain is a short-tempered man with an ill-advised haircut My captain is a lithe little thing with extraordinary taste in barrettes It’s a wonder I’ve made it anywhere off the island It’s […]

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