Morning Shift
T.J. O'Donnell
For years I get up earlier than God to sharpen tools on the grinding wheel, sparks falling on my shoes. I am napping when he notices and His voice sings in the bird song: who left the sparks out, who left it out? The mammals intone indictment instead of praise, indicate me by stepping backwards, don’t wake me for the package. Small wrapped bomb left on the porch. The attached card is bigger than the present: Dear You, Bang. Love, Me. Under the newspaper wrapping paper a box with smaller and smaller boxes that I am opening for the rest of my life.
T.J. DONNELL teaches first grade in Fairbanks, Alaska. His poems have appeared in places like Cirque, Ice-Floe, Banjo Newsletter and the sides of Borealis Brewery bottles. He plays upright bass with the E.T. Barnette String Band, The Frosty Bottom Boys, and The Headbolt Heaters.
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| Start With Steak | |
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| Danielle Lea Buchanan :: | Spawn |
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| Danica Obradovic :: | The Shortest Ceremony |
| Syllabic Debacle | |
| Mark Walters :: | Caveboy 1 & 2 |
| Larissa Nash :: | The Star |
| Unreal | |
| Jenny McDougal :: | For the Monkey Astronauts of America in the 1950s |
| Adler Planetarium on a Weekend | |
| James Valvis :: | Poem Composed Entirely With Last Lines from James Dickey Poems 1 & 2 |
| T.J. O'Donnell :: | Morning Shift |
| Handmade in Alaska | |
| Emily Glossner Johnson :: | Vladimir Lenin Grown Weary |
| Meg Eden :: | An Old Man Sighted, Planting Poinsettias |
Homage to the Strange Spirits
| Kenneth Patchen :: | Picture Poems |