Things That Collapse
Image: “Graphing Uncertainty V” by Christine Crockett. “Things That Collapse” was written by Jonathan Harris for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
The Weather
Imagine the Earth is eating crackers in bed.
The crumbs are our lost days. They look toward
the coup de grace of the great Shaking Out
of the Quilt.
Poem in which Barbie Qualifies for Medicare
Barbie never thought too much about her eligibility.
She’d loved AARP—the discounts at Sunglass Hut
and Outback Steakhouse—when she waved
her bright red card.
Two Pints
fireside rug wishing the dog would take me Six years it was, sleeping on couches. Waiting for Mam to
Kill Them in the Morning
I’m trying to find where it says,
If your enemy comes to slay you at night,
kill them in the morning.
A Lover, Rejected, Rejects the Myth That Is Billie Holiday
knows she was an uncommon arroyo who understood
that blue on the quintile is a withering thing;
knows Billie lived in an upended Vermont and was
not unlike a nova or a seed in a scalawag’s belly …