The Bottomless Nursery
Timothy Wooley & Shea Crider
I thought I was ok
but I could tell by your silence
that you were not talking.
The pubescent girl
sometimes she wonders
Now I know why they call it a scavenger
hunt.
Things unknown
form together out of nothingness
Like paper mâché on a chalkboard
and the belly of a crocodile.
I swam to the wrong part of the ocean
and drowned in the waves of your love.
They were salty.
I was nine years old.
Holographic bipartisan lingerie
hangs in my bead room.
I mean bedroom
it’s covered in beads.
Solely for the purpose of
personal satisfaction, I lay still.
Watching the hikers pass,
they tread on my back.
I wait for rain.
Marsupials have pouches
To carry their young.
I too have a pouch
to carry my emotional baggage
It’s Dior.
You dusted off your tie-dyed t-shirt
And headed to the planetarium.
Tuesday tentatively tickles the trees.
The moon clings to the sun
as I cling
to your mother’s dirty laundry
Humpty dumpty sat on a wall
Hump me and dump me.
A youthful little vagabond lurks
Beyond the howling pumpkin
I swear I saw an octopus
in your brown ocean eyes.
He fled when I drew near
Often I am rough.
Speak to me softly
like raisins rolling down a grassy hill.
Two gumballs sit on the table.
Hollow. Still. Waiting.
Her teeth are still crooked
as you empty your cup in my mouth
You taste it. So do I.
Two pears
sliding against each other
Creating friction.
I wish there was a word greater than love
I would feed it to my fish.
Elderly eggs
eagerly expecting eczema.
Aren’t we all
A little ticklish
On the inside?
Calling all zookeepers
please donate earwax
Creativity flows
like water from a faucet.
It all goes
down the drain.
Anteaters run amuck
In the trailer park
it’s five o’clock central standard time.
Gregarious grapes gargle garlicky
grandfathers
I knit a scarf made of all the promises you
didn’t keep.
And you better believe I gave it to someone
who wrapped it around his
arms.
Moistening the large armchair
For the big day.
Fog outside the window
churning like a washing machine.
Matrimony is in the air.
Spring, 2018 Issue