<div class="line">My glass regardless of its contents</div>
<div class="line">is full of Now—so full of Now</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">I can drink my fill without fear</div>
<div class="line">of Now going out of business.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">When unable to bend an elbow,</div>
<div class="line">I take my Now through a straw.</div>


10 Things I Learned from Cinching Up a Drag Queen

Why Instead of Begging My Mom for Extra Allowance Money …

Late Fragment

<div class="line">In the &#8220;Hey, You There!&#8221; of the moment</div>
<div class="line">Lester thought it was the Lord calling.</div>
<div class="line">He turned, looked, saw nothing human,</div>
<div class="line">but there sprawled a pig in the gutter</div>
<div class="line">moaning in a language Lester didn&#8217;t</div>
<div class="line">understand but could speak if spoken</div>
<div class="line">to by a friendly pig. This one wasn&#8217;t</div>
<div class="line">first-order friendly, sick as it looked,</div>
<div class="line">pig-gibberish erupting like weight-</div>
<div class="line">lifter&#8217;s grunts from its fat-fortified</div>
<div class="line">throat, nostrils dilated as if searching</div>
<div class="line">for solace in barren underbrush, tail</div>
<div class="line">a twisted story telling nothing except</div>
<div class="line">confusion and spiraling morbidity.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">Lester at last broke his verbal silence</div>
<div class="line">with words of assurance directed into</div>
<div class="line">the gutter, their demeanor cloaked in</div>
<div class="line">the modesty of a mare breaking wind</div>
<div class="line">after overindulging in bitter oats. He</div>
<div class="line">then paused at the gate of his mission,</div>
<div class="line">unlatched society&#8217;s scruples, finally</div>
<div class="line">kneeling beside the pig suffering deep</div>
<div class="line">in its own solitude and began soothing</div>
<div class="line">the victim&#8217;s receding brow with caution.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">This action caused the pig to roll over,</div>
<div class="line">not unlike a dog asked to play dead or</div>
<div class="line">a lap cat wanting its stomach rubbed.</div>
<div class="line">Lester promptly responded, providing</div>
<div class="line">solace where the pig indicated its pain</div>
<div class="line">made a home. At that moment Lester&#8217;s</div>
<div class="line">life changed for the better even though</div>
<div class="line">he didn&#8217;t know it. All Lester knew as</div>
<div class="line">he knelt was his love for this poor pig.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/McKeeCalling.mp3"></audio></figure>

Ode to a Band-Aid

Infidel

Lester’s Calling

<div class="line">Lester had no way of knowing</div>
<div class="line">how down a day he faced,</div>
<div class="line">how deep a depression</div>
<div class="line">his flesh had inherited.</div>
<div class="line">He had no idea</div>
<div class="line">he’d get out of bed,</div>
<div class="line">poor poetry pouring</div>
<div class="line">from every pore</div>
<div class="line">as if his dreams</div>
<div class="line">had been gang-banged</div>
<div class="line">first by roving similes</div>
<div class="line">then by skinny succubi.</div>
<div class="line">All Lester could know</div>
<div class="line">was how urgently</div>
<div class="line">he needed a shower</div>
<div class="line">to wash away</div>
<div class="line">derogatory words</div>
<div class="line">imaginary love leaves</div>
<div class="line">on its victim’s ego.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src=" https://admin.rattle.com/audio/McKeeNobody.mp3"></audio></figure>

Deadline

IN A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY

Another Night Nobody Came Alive

<p>He talked on long after<br />I’d been shooed up to bed<br />on calamine-lotioned legs,<br />his voice finding a hole<br />through the hot air register<br />over the parlor stove<br />and, ferret-like, digging<br />for my ears, the end<br />of his story what I wanted<br />him to get to before<br />my eyes gave up to the dark,<br />my mind wanting to know<br />more about underground fires<br />started by striking miners<br />who’d set fire to a car of coal,<br />turned it loose on the tipple<br />to roll back into the earth<br />where it had come from,<br />how the timbers, then the<br />coal veins had been ignited,<br />and like a coal stove<br />with proper draft, burned on<br />underground, parching land<br />around New Straitsville, Ohio,<br />swallowing up trees, buildings,<br />when its firebox collapsed,<br />how years back it had come<br />so close to the schoolhouse<br />where my mother taught that<br />she feared for her students, how<br />even Franklin Delano Roosevelt<br />and his entire New Deal,<br />including the WPA<br />couldn’t put out the mine fire,<br />how it burned on the way<br />my legs did against<br />Grandmother’s muslin sheets,<br />poison ivy spreading where<br />my fingernails had burst blisters,<br />the poison ivy’s flames as good<br />at keeping me awake<br />as Grandpa’s downstairs voice<br />burning into my memory.</p><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/McKeeGrandpas.mp3"></audio></figure>

You Can’t Know Because You Haven’t Been Sick

A Beauty Spot

Story Time at Grandpa’s

<p><em>“…the strange experience of beauty.”</em><br /><em>–Marianne Moore</em></p>
<p>I discovered a beauty spot on<br />my mind soon after we met.<br />Self-diagnosed weeks later as<br />benign love in situ, I’ve watched<br />this spot grow, its size increasing<br />dramatically each time it’s in your<br />presence as if nurtured by your beauty<br />and watered with your warm words.</p>
<p>I’ve done nothing to encourage this<br />growth now larger than my ability<br />to ignore. In non-medical terms this<br />translates into being unable to take my<br />eyes off you in your company and treating<br />myself when I’m alone with memories<br />made stronger by photographs of you.</p>
<p>I’ve taken an amazing amount of over- and<br />under-the-counter medication which<br />has only fixed my attention on what has grown<br />into your likeness everywhere in my life.</p><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/McKeeSpot.mp3"></audio></figure><p></p>

Shopping Cart
items

August 15, 2023Late FragmentGlenn McKee

Sign up for our Newsletter

August 15, 2023Late FragmentGlenn McKee

Related

Lester’s Calling by Glenn McKee

Another Night Nobody Came Alive by Glenn McKee

Story Time at Grandpa’s by Glenn McKee

A Beauty Spot by Glenn McKee