It is the year of baking bread. Of mouths tinted blue. Of this is worse than it should have been. It’s Saturday. I no longer believe in trees. The breeze smells like its own sequel. I sell the film rights to my left thigh. I self-publish the middle of the Atlantic. I ask Tennessee, Do you regret being Tennessee? Does anyone remember dial tones or the dream about the wolf who ate the other wolves? I get a letter in the mail stating that the warranty on my soul is about to expire. I haven’t left the house since the last time I left the house. I used to believe in so many things: hospital waiting rooms, soap that smelled like stardust, the monotony of an afternoon of chewing on leftover ice from my glass of iced coffee. The speed limit in heaven is tachycardia per hour. How far down a throat can a tube go? I am [redacted] but not [redacted]. Someone locked the front door. The past is nothing but dried burgundy, or maybe it’s a lake or possibly a river if you’re bold enough to call it that.
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Leigh Chadwick’s debut poetry collection, Your Favorite Poet, is forthcoming from Malarkey Books.