Published on: 9/16/2011
Blame it on Bad Weather

The sky is falling and I must have swallowed it
while walking to the office. Fog has seeped
so far down my sinuses, it's draining out
my eye cavity--

all I see is gray:

gray walls, gray carpet, gray countertops

even the blinks in between are a shade
of pencil lead

but like a good copy-editor, I
cross out, carrot top, insert letter here,
an i in the typo "Lve"
or is it o,
I don't know, so I write ea

wipe the crust from my eyes,

and go.

Published on: 9/16/2011
Bookmarked

She collects petals, all colors and types.
Bruised or not, places them in used books
at her library job. "Origin of Species"
rests flat on a shelf, its edges rough, torn, over
analyzed. In this Library of Medicine,
students leave their thoughts in margins or between text,
pencil-leaded punctuation: underlines, question marks, asterisks.
Page seven: scribbled not in pencil but red pen, "God is dead,"
a confident Nietzsche activist.
(...There is only one church near campus)
God is Dead. On the next page, etched heavy.
God is Dead. And the next. Reading like a cartoon sketch, God is...
She flips through, notices an unmarked passage. The epilogue,
appearing unread. Its pages, not smudged with ink or ripped,
but smooth, delicate. She presses
a fresh dandelion across Darwin's sentence:
God works miracles through science.

The petals streak like a yellow highlighter.