by Kelly Fordon
I made a blanket out of sideways glances
and spent the day taunting the fish.
Back and forth, back and forth, the dog
dreamt of peanut butter and grass, my ulna
cracked in half, and my dead grandmother
stitched it back together with dental floss.
An ancient civilization sprang up in my mouth,
many shirtless men digging ditches in the hot,
moist air. Later some scallywag arrived
with a platter of fizzy lemonade and sang
to me of summertime and swizzle sticks.
KELLY FORDON’s work has appeared in The Florida Review, The Kenyon Review Online, Rattle, and various other journals. Her novel-in-stories, Garden for the Blind, was chosen as a 2016 Michigan Notable Book among other awards. On the Street Where We Live, a one-act play adapted from her poetry with Robin Martin was chosen for the 2018 Dream Up Festival in New York and will be published in the fall of 2019 in the Kenyon Review Online. She is the author of three award-winning poetry chapbooks and a full-length poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House (Kattywompus Press 2019). www.kellyfordon.com
Photo: “Sick” by csp67
Psaltery & Lyre 