Click title to open microchap

Cover collage by Jan Keough

•

hummingbird pulls up
asks for two gallons hi-test
morning starbucks rush

crabapple tree
harvest: lots of apples but
still waiting for crab

*

infusing vodka
a pound of cranberries
and an upcoming
Thanksgiving dinner
with the family

cracking an egg the snake’s teeth whisper

*

are your chicken thighs
boneless? galangal and mace,
chiles, coconut

you eat hamburgers
but do you top them with ham?
a meaty koan

my cat does not like
little a salami: how
did I raise you wrong?

whispers in the morning the eggs say hello

*

the condescending
look on the stripper’s face as
i place my order

“i’ll just have a lemonade.”
she stalks off hot and sour

coffee beans in the sack with their eyes wide open

*

cubing meat and cheese
for pasta salad: squirrel
asks to see menu

alfredo’s restaurant
counter: take a penne,
leave a penne

•

Robert Beveridge © 2021

Headwind

Sometimes it is
better
to turn away
not cut the path
against the headwind
ride, instead, with it
to your side
the eyes
water less that way

Quickling

Charcoal smudges define
the horizon as Lake Erie fades
into the sky. November has passed,
left nothing but scattered mounds
of dirty snow and its signature
bite in the wind. The year's last birds
skitter over sand, prepare
for flight. The parking lot is empty.

Goblet

Your body
but a vessel

some unknown fate
decided to pour life
into you for a while

but got too thirsty
and drank you off
in one long, slow swallow

left nothing
but this pretty gem-
encrusted shell

that could have been you

Roast Mules

Water-damaged paperback sits
on the windowsill, sole memory
of your days as a professional
Scrabble player. You have turned
your attention to anagrams,
make euphemisms of disease
and brainteasers of childhood activity.
Roundabout you go,
stand on the carousel and laugh
at those who persist in a line
that never gets any shorter.

Rex Eris

Somehow at the last conclave you
were named the king of the marmosets.
They brought you blueprints, tactics
for an upcoming battle with the wolverines,
grapes to snack on, many half-eaten.
This is not where you thought you’d be
in five years when the faceless interviewer
from the cable company asked the question.
You wonder if, in another sixty months,
you will have annexed a second empire.

Sexism

Why do
kissed toads
never
become princesses?

•

Robert Beveridge © 2021