From the drive-thru window I watch a midnight worker, imagine reaching through to grab the pot of coffee next to the ice cream machine and smash it to the ground like a hot black bomb. The surveillance camera guilts me and I'm so ashamed that when he hands me my milkshake with fries I let our hands touch so he knows that in between the salt and the mops and the 24-hours of operation the world is more than a paper landscape burning.
On the ride home I cry for the first time in a year. That night I dream that my body is chicken being eaten—first my breast, then my elbows, then the soft spot behind my wrist where I can still feel the stroke of your fingers.
Erin Dorney lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. You can learn more about her at http://erindorney.com or follow her on Twitter at @edorney. Her work has appeared in The Pinch Literary Journal, Birdfeast Magazine, Rufous City Review, The Found Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Craig Kurtz
Index Denied
Reinvestment Order
Erin Dorney
This Is Not A Poem About
Fast Food
Left
Tim Kahl
Plasma Globe
Alison McCabe
I Watch Myself Loop
Dan Boehl
excerpts from whatever
from @emoemoji
Vanessa Couto Johnson
(t)ravel
neces(sit)ies
Valentina Cano
Planned Remodeling
Ryan Napier
Seasonal Affective Disorder
Terry Wolverton
Sizzle and Chew
Gregory Crosby
Satan's Skull Glows White Hot
Lea Galanter
When Lost in the Woods
Jake Sheff
Stasis in Ragtime
Angelica Poversky
Enough
Mercedes Lawry
In Late November, There Are
Days of False Clemency