Spring 2015, Volume 18

Poetry by Michelle Askin

Strain

Wild snow drifting over yellow hay planes.
Your cousin in the rain flooded bathroom
yelling how hot her new army boyfriend is
in photos of the war. You are too old
to cut yourself without being locked away
in the STEM Up For Life in Christ Home.
All night you masturbate slowly to the beat
of coal and revival snake handler trains.
And on the news: three punk ass kids electrocuted
up on the school roof for prank—before shooting,
before planned suicide. The farmer's wife next door
turns it off. Turns the dial to the Everly Brothers’ Dream,
Dream. All I have to do...and slaughters the last white chickens
over the now Michigan black ice and wet paint.

 

 

 


BIO: Michelle Askin's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Split Lip Magazine, Exact Change Only, Beecher's Magazine, Ray's Road Review, SAND, Crab Fat Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives and works in Virginia.